


The Boy Who Balanced on the Train Tracks

by SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Death Eaters, Descriptions of poverty, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Johnlock, First Time, Harry Potter / Sherlock Holmes crossover, I originally found the ending bittersweet, John Watson is a wizard, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Potterlock, Time Turner, Underage sexual attraction, Yes really!, but have been reliably informed it's 'happy for everyone', domestic abuse, sexual awakening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-11 04:46:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 54,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13516848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John/pseuds/SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John
Summary: Every year, on the 2nd of May, John Watson dreams of long black hair.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> I needed the chance to take little breaks from writing Priest!lock (don't worry - Gallant Darling is still being actively written!), and this Potterlock plot bunny wouldn't leave me alone. 
> 
> I'll start by saying that I am WELL aware this fic is riddled with inaccuracies, timeline/age changes, wrong/impossible magic, etc. I'm by no means a Harry Potter expert, despite loving the series and characters, so just keep in mind if you decide to read this that this story is really just for pure fun, and because I wanted to finally write the John Watson / Severus Snape backstory I've always dreamed of :)
> 
> This fic is completely plotted out, and fairly quick to write, but I might post more Gallant Darling before posting more of this. 
> 
> ***Official credit for the idea of "John is a wizard with a secret wizarding past he walked away from" definitely goes to 1electricpirate and their MIND-BLOWING series "More Things Than Are Dreamt Of." Please give that series a read first if you haven't [HERE](http://archiveofourown.org/series/23063/). I owe my love of Potterlock to that fic and that fic alone. While John is a wizard in this story, it is not at all set in the same universe as that series. ***
> 
> I don't want to say too much up front to avoid spoilers, but if you'd like to know more information about any of the tags listed above, I am more than happy to answer any questions on my [Tumblr](http://sincewhendoyoucallme-john.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](http://twitter.com/sincewhen_john/). There is NO underage sex in this fic, or any student-teacher relationship or dynamic, but there is underage sexual attraction between two teens.
> 
> If a John Watson & Severus Snape backstory, all mixed with beautiful Johnlock, sounds like a fun time, come join me! :)

Every year, on the 2nd of May, John Watson dreams of long black hair. 

It slips through his shaking fingers, and traces across his chest. Blocks out the sunlit sky until all he can see is strands of ink.

It shimmers beneath swirls of thick green smoke, and slices like silver across his tongue. Silver and blood.  
And when John’s fingers reach under his pillow to grip his wand in his sleep, he screams out into the void, “ _Anapneo! Episkey! Vulnera sanatur!_ ”

He screams until the white hands choking his airway turn to ash, and the snake puffs into smoke, and the floorboards fade to grass. He screams, but the long black hair doesn’t move. It grows cold. It lies motionless, utterly still, slumped against the wall.

And John grows wings and flies, soars across the world, searching and searching for the potion that will work. That will seep its way through thin, soft lips, and clean a marble throat of blood. That will give the lifeless and ice cold and thin body wings, so that it can fly by John’s side, follow him to the edges of the earth, leaving every black cloud behind them.

But when John’s wings break and crumble under the forces of the wind, and he falls to earth, buried and choked by slithering strands of hair, he wakes up in the darkness with tears on his face, and Sherlock Holmes gently guides his wand from his deathly fierce grip, and wipes the tears away with his thumbs until dawn.

 

\--

 

Every year, on the 3rd of May, Sherlock Holmes aches to know _why_.

He keeps his promise – the one he made to John that first year together in the flat, when he came home from a case to find John curled up on the floor of the kitchen, with tousled hair, and swollen, wet eyes, and a long stick of wood in his hand.

“I’m a wizard,” John had said, without any preamble. And Sherlock had nodded, because of course, he’d known. He’d known since he was five years old and saw a man disappear with a crack beside him on a lonely London street, not knowing there was a child hiding behind a rubbish skip to see him. And he’d known since he’d first laid eyes on John Watson in a lab, and saw the indent on his middle finger from holding a wand many years ago, and the way he shivered when he walked through a cloud of leftover magic in the air. He’d known when he woke up after a concussion on one of their earliest cases together, and the bruises Sherlock had known he would have right before he lost consciousness were mysteriously not there.

“I know,” Sherlock had said. He’d looked at John’s red eyes. “Are you upset about it?”

John had grimaced, twisting his face and hitching in a desperate breath. He’d held his head in his hands, and black fog swirled sadly from the tip of his wand. “No,” he’d whispered. “Please . . . please don’t try to deduce about this. About this day.” He’d groaned from the deepest pit of his chest. “Promise me.”

And Sherlock had knelt beside him, and wrapped his fingers around John’s hand. Something warm had swelled in his chest when the smoke dripping from John’s wand faded into the color of the sea at his touch.

“I promise,” he’d said. And that had been that.

The next year, after John had been shot in the leg on a case, and Sherlock had gasped out, “but I love you,” as the ambulance doors closed, thinking it was his last chance in the world to say those words, Sherlock didn’t come home on the 2nd of May to find John crumpled on the floor. Instead they’d come home together, winded and laughing, reaching for each other as soon as the front door clicked shut. 

It wasn’t until they lay side by side in their bed, chests panting, thighs slick, with bare skin pressed to bare skin. After John had silently spelled both of them clean and dry in a way that made Sherlock gasp at the wave of magic across his skin. After John had flicked his wand lazily towards the ceiling until it was painted with bright stars in a way that made Sherlock shiver up his spine and ache between his legs. It wasn’t until Sherlock had fallen asleep in John’s arms, and then woken from the deepest sleep to the feeling of something trembling against him. Sherlock had realized that that something had been John’s own chest, wrecked with silent sobs in the solace of the dark, and Sherlock had begged him, “Please tell me. Please let me help you. I want to help you.”

“I can’t,” John had breathed. “You can’t help this.”

And so even now, three years later, Sherlock doesn’t put together the clues. He doesn’t write down his observations, or allow himself to connect the dots. He doesn’t ask, or pry, or read the lines in John’s face. He just holds him, on the 2nd of May, and breathes calm into the back of his neck. And on the 3rd of May, Sherlock brushes his teeth, and buttons up his shirt, and pulls on his gloves as they leave the flat. He watches John casually rest his hand over his wand hidden in his pocket as they walk through bright London streets, and he simply, silently wonders _why_.

 

\--

 

1970

The young boy had hair so blonde it made the rest of the world look grey. So bright that it should be illegal to have a head of hair like that in a slum.

Severus crouched behind one of the abandoned cars down at the railyard, watching the little boy try to balance on one of the twisted, rusty train tracks. He wore a t-shirt, just a t-shirt, that was five sizes too big, and had a bruise on his wrist the same exact shape as the one on Severus’. A father’s handprint.

His bare feet were black along the soles from no shoes.

And Severus watched, heart beating, as the little boy teetered and started to fall, waving his arms like windmills to try and stop himself from crashing to the dusty, hard earth. His body tilted, just skin and bones, and one leg flew up in the air. And just then, with a thrill that exploded like fire along Severus’ spine, he watched as the little boy pushed off the ground and flew up into the air, floating like a cloud until his all of his toes gently touched the ground, laughing like it hadn’t been a day and a half since he’d last eaten.

Severus stepped out from behind the car. “How old are you?” he called out. The boy didn’t even flinch, didn’t even turn around to see who it was.

“Eight.”

“I’m ten,” Severus declared. His voice sounded too loud in his ears. “Next year I’m going to Hogwarts, and when you’re old enough, you can join me.”

The boy turned around and faced him, and he didn’t look scared in the least. He didn’t stare at Severus’ too-long hair, or the dirt on his neck, or his clothes.

“How old do I have to be to go?” he asked.

“Eleven.”

The boy looked down and counted on his fingers. “That’s in three years.”

“It is,” Severus said, and he wondered why he wasn’t annoyed with him for being so slow. “It’s because you’re a wizard, like me.” He cupped his hands in front of him and pushed, forcing a wave of air to blast across the boy’s face, blowing the dirty bangs back from his eyes. 

Severus expected the little boy to open his mouth and stare, or to laugh at him, or to scream, or run around jumping for joy.

Instead he merely hummed. “So that’s why I can do this,” he said quietly.

“Do what?”

The boy looked up at him. “Can I come closer?” he asked. 

Severus nodded.

When he came close, Severus could hear his little breaths wheezing in his lungs. The veins on his forehead were so blue. And he reached out and beckoned for Severus to show him his hand. And when he did, the boy took it in both of his and placed his fingers over the newest bruise. Out of nowhere, Severus felt waves of heat pulsing up his arm, something like hot chocolate and his mother’s eyes and soap. When the boy took his hands away, the skin on Severus’ wrist looked good as new.

He stared, mouth open. He wanted to say thank you. He wanted to ask why or when or how or who in the world taught him. Instead he asked, “How come you don’t do the same thing to yourself?”

The boy shrugged. “Never done it to myself. Only ever done it to mum.”

Severus couldn’t breathe. He held out his new hand, staring at the unmarked skin. “My name’s Severus,” he said. The boy didn’t even hold in a laugh. Instead he held out his own hand, so small it looked like it would break apart.

“John.”

 

\--

 

Every year, on the 4th of May, John locks his wand away in his old school trunk. 

He holds it in his palms first, runs his thumbs along the grooves. He draws the tip of it up his arm, across his shoulder, up his neck. He breathes in the scent of his own magic, letting his fingertips tingle with the force. And then he shuts his eyes, and he sees long black hair, and his wand goes straight to the bottom of the trunk. 

Sherlock doesn’t ask where it is – not since that first year. He doesn’t question it when he wakes up in the flat on the 4th of May and the tea isn’t already making itself in the kitchen. He doesn’t open his mouth to say he misses the way John breathes the Latin into his ear, or the way his power envelopes Sherlock in its focus and warmth, or the way John can make their meals without ever leaving the tangled sheets. 

But John knows all of these things. He can read them plain as day on Sherlock’s face. He sees the unasked questions like tattoos on his pale skin, and the way Sherlock’s eyes devour him, reading every line and freckle, holding himself back from finally figuring it out and _knowing_.

It reminds him of a pair of black eyes gazing at his across the grass. 

And so when John takes his wand out again each year on the 1st of June, and quietly slips it into his pocket after pressing his lips to the wood, Sherlock Holmes doesn’t ask why the tea is once again making itself in the kitchen. And he doesn’t ask why, on the 2nd of May, John calls out, “ _anapneo_ ” in his sleep.

 

\--

 

1972

When Severus came home from his first year at Hogwarts, he found John Watson in the abandoned railyard trying to balance on the same twisted train tracks, and he took him to the shade to show him all of his magic books from school.

“You should read everything now,” he said, trying not to shake with excitement. “That way you can be the smartest one in your class – far ahead of everyone.”

“What House did you get sorted into?” John asked instead.

Severus looked at John, and looked down at his own black clothes, and back at John. “You’re really asking me that?”

He wanted to ask if John had anyone to wash his clothes for him, the same way the nurse had done for him his first day of term.

John rested his thin cheeks in his hands and grinned. “So you got into Slytherin?”

“Obviously. Same as you’ll get next year when you come join me.”

John stilled beside him, and Severus’ skin prickled with alarm. “You got your letter, didn’t you? I got mine around this time.”

He watched confused as John shrugged, then pulled a folded paper from his pocket. Severus noticed that now he had on shorts below the t-shirt, but they were girl’s shorts, with bright flowers stitched into the sides in faded thread. John caught him looking and pulled his t-shirt down quickly.

“Got this a few weeks ago under our front door,” he said.

Severus reached out and pulled the folded envelope from John’s hands. It was still sealed. “You didn’t open it?”

John’s cheeks flushed pink. “Oh, right.”

Severus handed him back the envelope, trying to hold back his questions. John Watson looked the exact same size he did when he last saw him one year ago. With the same thin arms, and the same t-shirt, and the same marks along his wrists. 

The same golden hair.

He waited as John slowly, ever so slowly, ripped it open, and forced himself to be patient as John unfolded the familiar thick parchment within. John stared at the paper in his hands, and Severus held his breath.

When John didn’t say anything, Severus couldn’t hold himself back. He leaned forward, and around John’s shoulder, and held in a gasp at what he saw.

John was holding his Hogwarts acceptance letter upside down.

John kept holding it in his hands, eyes riveted to the paper. The harsh sun broke through the shade of the dying tree, glinting off the abandoned railcars lying in waste strewn across the dirt.

“Do you . . .” Severus paused. “Can you read what it says?”

John’s eyes didn’t leave the paper, but he shook his head no.

A wave of shame burst across Severus’ skin, and he slowly moved his pile of books from Hogwarts out of the way. He rolled up his sleeve.

“I don’t go back for my second year for two months. I can show you,” he said.

John still stared at the paper, tracing over the wax seal with his thumb. When he finally looked up, he looked straight at Severus’ bared wrist.

“Your wrist is fatter,” he said quietly. “Got no marks on it.”

John took it in his hand, and Severus felt the same pulse of warmth, sparking through his veins like the magic straight from his wand. “’S only my first few days back,” he whispered, even though there was no one around to hear. “Sure you’ll have to use that magic on me before the summer’s up.”

And John didn’t smile at that, or even frown, but instead said, “I would love to read your magic books, Severus.”

 

\--

 

2005

“John, come on.”

“No.”

“I can’t see why you’re being so –”

“I’m not.”

“Just do it!”

“Nope.”

Sherlock huffs and barely resists the urge to stomp his foot. Sweat trickles down his back in the thick evening heat, and he absolutely refuses to take off his coat. He arranges his face to give John his best pleading look.

“Everything would be so much faster if –”

“Sherlock, for the ten-millionth time, I will _not_ do any magic on your cases.”

“They’re _our_ cases –”

“I can’t _do_ magic in muggle London, Sherlock. I’m not even supposed to –”

“Our flat is ‘muggle London,’ and I don’t see either of us making the tea –”

“You _love_ picking locks. It’s like your Christmas present to yourself. I don’t see why you need me to --”

“But John –”

“You could have picked it in the time we’ve had this argument!”

Sherlock sighs and rolls his eyes, shooting a pointed look at the outline of John’s wand in his back jeans pocket. He sinks to his knees and begins work on the lock, smiling to himself when he sees John assume his most protective stance behind him.

“Just another minute or so,” he mutters. “Time which we could have spent inside searching. . .”

“I’ll do that thing you like tonight when we get back,” John barely whispers. 

Sherlock swallows hard. “The weightless one?”

John hums, and Sherlock’s cheeks blush.

When the door finally clicks and sways open, Sherlock rises to his feet on cracking knees. 

“See?” John says, helping him up. “Wasn’t so hard.”

Sherlock doesn’t answer, just brushes ahead of him into the darkened room, flicking on the small torch in his hand and swooping it across the walls. Their robbery suspect will be back in fifteen minutes, tops, and the tick of the clock beats like adrenaline in his veins. His torch sweeps across walls covered in torn and faded papers – posters drooping down with faded ink and newspaper clippings. Sherlock’s just about to turn back to John to whisper an observation when it happens.

John curses, in a voice that sets the hairs on Sherlock’s arms on end.

“Merlin . . .” he hears behind him.

Sherlock whips around, barely remembering in time to shine the torch away from John’s eyes.

“John --?”

“Need to floo the Ministry,” John breathes out. His face is pure white, and his eyes are crumbling at the corners. His hand is on his wand, and Sherlock sees his fearless, sturdy fingers shake.

And then John Watson turns around, takes two tumbling steps towards the front door, and vomits.

“John!”

“Get the hell out of here –”

John’s sprinting out the door. “Sherlock, now!” he screams back, and Sherlock’s numb legs finally start to move. He chases after John, vision going grey at the edges. Chases him down dingy alleys and feeling the strange twist of wrong in his gut that John is the one leading, and he is the ignorant follower. He waits outside a seedy bar with sweaty palms while John runs inside, knowing there’s a fireplace in there John can stick his head into without being burned.

When John finally comes back out, and Sherlock has hung up his own call with the Met, John’s skin looks clammy and terrified and grey. And just as Sherlock is opening his mouth to ask him what the hell just happened, John gives him the same look he gave him three years ago on the kitchen floor. So Sherlock shuts his mouth tight, and swallows down his words, and he holds out his hand for John to take it. He thinks he remembers, as they sit in a silent taxi back to the flat, that John’s eyes had been riveted on a poster tacked in the center of the suspect’s wall. And he thinks, if he remembers hard, that there had been a huge black skull, and a snake wound through its eyes and mouth with shining, dead eyes.

And he thinks that the snake had been moving like it was alive.

That night, even though it’s the 17th of August, John Watson cries out, “ _episkey_ ” and grips his wand hard in his sleep. And that night, even though it isn’t the 2nd of May, Sherlock holds him, and wipes away his tears, and realizes he can no longer not _know._

 

\--

 

1973

Severus Snape took John Watson to get his wand in Diagon Alley, and he refused to feel embarrassed when they dumped out handfuls of dirty coins on the pristine counter of Ollivander’s to cobble together enough money to pay. 

When John’s wand chose him, a burst of sunlight exploded across the room, and the tendrils of the vines hanging from the ceiling rippled and waved, and a gust of wind blew up John’s old t-shirt to reveal the flower-embroidered shorts. And as John was gripping his wand, and smiling in a way Severus had never seen before in his life, a group of other Hogwarts third-years outside the window began to laugh at his exposed shorts and legs. So Severus whipped out his wand and hexed them so fast even Ollivander was struck dumb. It was worth the warning letter from the Ministry, worth a thousand warning letters, to save John from having to hear them laugh at him.

They bought John a wand, and he didn’t have money left for anything else on his list. So Severus took him to a shop where he knew that you could get a free set of robes in a fashion from one or two decades ago, and when John was back outside, waiting patiently on the curb, Severus leaned across the counter and swallowed down his shame to beg the nice woman for two spare coins.

Severus’ mother had pressed a tiny coin into his palm before they left, while his father was still screaming upstairs and throwing her favorite vase, and she had told him to use it to buy them both an ice cream while they shopped. And Severus hadn’t known how to tell his mother that the coin in his palm wouldn’t even be able to buy one-fourth of one ice cream in Diagon Alley.

He bought John an ice cream – plain chocolate in the smallest size cup. He didn’t let John share anything more with him than just a single, guilty bite. And John told him, between small bites with the chocolate smeared across his face, that he’d seen an advertisement for chocolate ice cream through the window of a shop two years back, and that he’d wondered since then what it must taste like. And now he knew.

 

\--

 

2002

John asks Sherlock, exactly one month after they first kiss, if it bothers him that John can do magic and he can’t.

Sherlock almost laughs, but he doesn’t. The tone of John’s words washes down his spine and makes him shiver like he’s cold. Sherlock wants, so badly, to read into the tone of John’s voice. Why he just asked if Sherlock minds if he is a wizard the same way a young teen would ask their father if he minded they were queer. As if they were expecting the father to go, “Yes, I bloody well care! Now get the fuck out!”

So Sherlock comes up behind John where he’s standing facing away at the kitchen counter, and he wraps his arms around John’s chest and places his hand over the gnarled scar. 

“If you weren’t a wizard, you wouldn’t be John Watson,” he whispers, with more feeling than he’s ever said anything in his life. Even more feeling than he’d put behind the, “ _but I love you!_ ” he’d called out one month ago after the blast of a gunshot echoed through London streets, grazing off the perfect skin of John’s unsuspecting thigh.

John leans back into him, and sighs, and reaches into his pocket for his wand. “How did I find you?” he whispers.

Sherlock whispers into the nape of John’s neck, “You turned left in the park instead of right, and you ran into Mike Stamford, and I had told him only that morning that I needed a flatmate. And I didn’t scare you away.”

And Sherlock thrills inside his bones when he feels John’s muscles relax against him, and when he hears the barest huff of a laugh in the air of the flat. “Yeah, that’s how I found you,” John says back. And then his wand is tracing beams of fireflies through the air with brilliant gold, and Sherlock’s blood sings with the magic, and the ceiling above them fades into the sky, clear and blue.

 

\--

 

1973

The Sorting Hat cried out “Gryffindor” before it even fully touched John’s head, and its brim twisted away from the dirty, blonde mats, the same way it shied away from greasy black strands two years ago.

The entire hall cheered, and it made Severus want to sprint up to the platform and yell, “Idiots! All of you! You don’t know him at all! He belongs with me!”

Instead he sat on his hands and breathed through the unexpected ache in his chest as John Watson strode away from him where he sat alone on the Slytherin bench. He let his hair fall into his face and felt it brush against his thin cheeks, and the forcefield of disgust that his peers always created around him pulsed more strongly than ever.

“Look at Snivellus staring at that tiny Gryffindor,” another Slytherin whispered. “Probably figuring out how to turn him into a toad, or chop him up in a potion.”

Half the table laughed. The space around him grew wider. He kept his eyes on John Watson, disappearing into a crowd of red and gold, and drew his black robes tighter around himself. He could smell the sour scent coming from under his own arms, and it made him want to fly away from his own body – fly down into the dungeon where it was too dark to see his hooked nose behind black fumes. 

He didn’t see John again that night, not even after the Feast. While the rest of his House trudged along behind their Prefect to the dungeons, Severus faded into the dark stone and slipped away down the halls, taking the shortest route to the Infirmary in the other wing. He found the nurse, who scolded him for being out of his Common Room after hours. And when she was done, he asked her if tomorrow she could wash all of John Watson’s clothes, the same way she washed the dirt and grease of the slum out of his own clothes two years ago. And back in his dormitory, in his bed way off in the farthest corner, he practiced transfiguration until the earliest hints of the sun, until he could turn one of his green and silver school ties into red and gold to give to John. 

 

\--

 

2005

Sherlock wakes to soft fingertips stroking along his jaw.

“Hello you,” John says. His voice is rough and groggy, and his fingernails trimmed and clean. It is the most perfect representation of John Watson Sherlock has ever seen, and he presses those soft fingertips to his lips with his hand. He kisses them, tastes the layer of lavender soap and milky tea.

He pulls John on top of him, groaning with warmth at the heavy weight of his body sinking onto his. He runs his hands through John’s hair, perfectly smooth and clean.

It tells him something about John – his perfect military tidiness. He sees John’s childhood in his laundered and perfectly folded socks, and his family home in the way John’s sheets are creased, sharp and pristine at the corners. 

Sherlock sees all of these things – has seen them since the very first day John moved in – and yet he’s never brought them up, and John has never told a story of his life that took place before he was twenty-years-old, freshly into his studies at St. Bart’s and signing a military oath. Wand locked away in a trunk in the back of a closet.

“You’re thinking,” John says. He plants wet kisses down Sherlock’s neck, sucking at the skin and leaving a trail of wet warmth. 

Sherlock shivers, “I may be.”

John presses his lips around Sherlock’s nipple, body heavy and pliant. Sherlock breathes in the scent of his hair and trails his fingers down John’s spine.

John speaks into his skin. “Well? Go on then.”

And Sherlock doesn’t want to. He really doesn’t want to. But he says, “You’ve been calling out more in your sleep. Since we found that mark in the suspect’s flat.”

John stills, and rolls off Sherlock’s body, and Sherlock’s chest and stomach feel too light and too cold.

They both stare at the ceiling. Sherlock’s insides flicker and boil. He tries to breathe, and he feels John’s stillness acutely in the frozen mattress.

John’s voice is flat. “It’s all fine – I told you the Ministry took care of everything. Just some young wizards who thought it looked cool. Plus you caught your man.”

“That’s not what I was asking.”

John nods solemnly. “I know.”

Sherlock wants to reach for his hand, almost does, then stops. His voice wavers. “You know. . . I love you more than I ever thought possible. More than I ever thought myself capable of such a thing.”

John shuts his eyes hard, and his chest shakes. “I know.”

And oh, how Sherlock wants to _know_ what John knows. How he wants to crawl inside his mind, and rest in the spaces between the fingers of John’s hand, and be one of the warm sparks that flow from the tip of his wand. He wants to see the clues and sit down and think and put together the pieces and finally _know_.

But he promised.

“I know how difficult it is for you,” he hears John whisper. “To let me have this.”

Sherlock cannot lie. “It is.”

They don’t say anything more, and Sherlock thinks when John finally shifts that he’s about to rise and leave their bedroom. He shuts his eyes, suddenly unable to watch John walk out the door into the rest of the flat.

Cool wood is pressed against his chest, trailing prickles across his skin. John’s breath is in his ear, ghosting through his sleep-warm curls as familiar Latin drifts across his scalp, against his bones.

And as John’s wand electrifies Sherlock’s most sensitive skin, and they’re enveloped in a soft cloud of pulsing heat and sparks, Sherlock allows himself, for just one second, to put two clues together.

He knows, so vividly it nearly makes him gasp, that John has whispered those words into someone else’s ear before. Years ago.

 

\--

 

1976

The head of golden hair was visible from miles away. Severus could find John Watson in the Great Hall and in the corridors. In the Quidditch stands and from far across the lake. He could find him in a crowded Hogsmeade street or through the trees of the Forbidden Forest. He could find him through the grime and dilapidated houses where they grew up each interminable summer where they passed the time counting the seconds until school started again, memorizing potions and schoolbooks together in the hot and filthy shade.

And every time Severus found him, John came rushing towards him without hesitation. John came rushing if Severus was alone, nose buried in a book, or if he was surrounded by classmates with their wands pointed towards his face. He came rushing if his enemies were Slytherins or Gryffindors. He came rushing even if everyone yelled at him to run the other way.

John was rushing towards him now, pristine red and gold robes flowing behind him in the breeze. Since John’s second day at Hogwarts, Snape had never seen him with dirt on his skin ever again. It made the gold of his hair even brighter – the softness of his skin even more like marble. His freckles like the spots on a ripe peach in the belly of summer.

Severus pushed his still-greasy hair out of his eyes.

“Troll,” he said, their own private joke.

John grinned. “Hag.”

John plopped beside him on the grass, and other students were starting to stare, and suddenly Severus wished more than anything that he was clean. That his hair was soft like John’s, and his robes just as fresh – anything to make himself appear less like a clod of mud next to John Watson.

John sat so close to him that their shoulders brushed beneath their robes. “I’d ask how your potions final went, but I know you aced it.”

Severus smiled down at his lap, the first time his face made that movement since the last time he sat with John two days ago. “I did,” he said simply.

John laughed. He did a lot more of that these past three years. While his hair was growing brighter, and his limbs growing stronger, and the circle around him blazing, drawing everyone in closer to his body like he was the sun. Nearly burning Severus, like a blackbird constantly flying just too close to the flames.

John held his wand softly between his fingers as they sat, sending blades of grass up into the bright sky until they turned into butterflies to flitter across the water.

Severus wanted to lift his wand to join him, to create something just as perfect, but the moment his wand alighted to do magic on the blade of grass, all it did was burst into black flames and fall to earth.

John didn’t even flinch.

“So,” John began. Severus tensed. He knew what was coming. “I heard that . . . that you had a problem yesterday. With Potter.”

Severus shifted so his trouser leg better covered the skin of his shin, sliding his thin bones further under himself. “’S nothing,” he said back.

He jumped when he felt John’s small, soft hands pushing up the leg of his trousers, slowly revealing more and more of Severus’ pale, bony leg. The rash from Potter’s hex the day before was ugly and pink, throbbing like nails across his shin.

John gasped. “Sev –”

Severus shoved his hands away, fierce shame prickling over his skin. The fact that he had been cornered by a bunch of fourth-years was humiliating enough. But to have John see. . . to have John have to look at the mark on his skin, and touch it . . .

John’s hands were back on his trousers, so firm Severus knew he wouldn’t be able to shake him off. He once again slid up the fabric to see the hex. 

“People are staring,” Severus heard himself breathe. John didn’t stop. 

And John Watson placed his perfect, clean hands on Severus’ oily and bleeding skin, and immediately Severus was overwhelmed by the force of magic through his veins. It blew back the curtains of hair from his face, and caught the breath in his lungs, and throbbed like a small pulse in the center of his chest.

Between his thighs.

John grunted softly with the effort, eyes shut tight and biting his bottom lip, and after a minute passed, and Severus thought he might never breathe again, John pulled his shaking fingers back from Severus’ shin, and the skin there was perfectly clear and smooth. 

“Why didn’t you come find me?” John asked before Severus could think of anything to say. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead just under his golden hair.

And Severus wanted to, he really wanted to, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell John Watson how he had snuck out of the dungeons last night when the pain grew too much, and had sneaked through the moonlit corridors until he came to the Gryffindor common room. How he had stood there, fading into the walls of dark stone, and tried to work up the courage to knock and ask for John – for John to come out in front of his friends, and stand close to Severus Snape, and place his perfect hands on his marred skin just in order to heal him from the hexes of the very boys currently sharing John’s dorm.

And he knew that John would have done it in a heartbeat, without hesitation. And that’s exactly why he never brought himself to knock.

Severus pushed his hair behind his ear and pulled his trouser leg back down. A group of John’s teammates, bright like the burning sun, were jogging towards them across the grass. John followed his gaze and Severus’ chest ached when he thought he heard John sigh.

“Watson!” one of them called. “The hell are you doing over there? It’s time for practice!”

“Is Snivellus begging you to heal his leg?” another one of them laughed. Severus’ hand reached for his wand, but he felt John’s fingertips gently stopping him. Before John could respond his Quidditch Captain was standing directly over them, blocking out the sun with his head. He looked at Severus. “You know he never heals people himself,” he said with a sneer. “Sends them straight to the Infirmary. What makes you think he’d do it to you?”

And Severus wanted to stand up and cry, “But he _did_ heal me. He put his hands on my body and I know it’s wrong but he _healed_ me! He’s healed me dozens and dozens of times!”

But instead he stayed silent as John slowly got to his feet, and straightened his shining red and gold tie. He didn’t say anything back when John looked down at him and whispered, “I have to go.” And he didn’t move, he didn’t even breathe, until the golden head of hair was so far away he could no longer see it, and Severus realized that the moving sea of red and gold robes was the ugliest, the most terrifying thing that he had ever seen.

-

Later that year, after Severus Snape found himself face to face with a werewolf at the end of a dripping black tunnel, he didn’t even need to worry about finding John Watson that night. John Watson found him, still shaking and alone beneath the Whomping Willow. And John sprinted to him so fast he looked like a shooting star soaring across the dark grass, and he pulled Severus into his warm body, and placed his hands all over his skin. But there weren’t any bleeding cuts or bruises to heal. No scratches or hexes or marred marks to erase. There was only the throbbing pulse of terror still groaning in his chest, and the wet tears falling down his cheeks that neither one of them commented on out loud, and the forbidden, untouchable, agonizing warmth that whispered, “ _John Watson came looking for you. John Watson noticed you were gone._ ”

 

\--

 

2005

Sherlock breaks his promise.

It happens one night, after they had been walking shoulder-to-shoulder down a street after a case. When their tired limbs had been lovingly bumping into one another, and Sherlock had felt that every drop of happiness on earth was currently settling in his chest. 

And Sherlock had been mid-way through reliving all of his observations, going over every precious detail of the case, and John had been listening, and then suddenly froze, and the air around them became ice.

“John?” Sherlock had whispered. But John was running. Sprinting. Flying around the corner up ahead and leaving Sherlock to trail behind, trying to pick out a shock of blonde hair in the London grime.

Sherlock had chased him down a side-street, around corners, beneath fire escapes. Had chased him until John Watson flew into an old bar, and when Sherlock had tried to pry open the door behind him it had been locked. Sherlock had crouched in the darkness, face pressed up against the glass, and seen John Watson push through a crowd of people, a crowd he realized were all smiling and calling out his name to come say hello, and he’d pushed through that smiling crowd of people to reach out for a shoulder draped in black. John had called out something, a word that made the entire bar freeze. And the shoulder draped in black had turned around, and pushed back a long curtain of thick, black hair, and John’s face had fallen so swiftly it knocked the air from Sherlock’s lungs.

After all of that – after John had slipped back out the side door of the filthy bar, and slipped his wand back into his pocket, and avoided looking at Sherlock in the eye. After John had breathed out an apology, and taken Sherlock’s hand in his, and kissed it – right there on a public street – in a way he had never done before.

After they’d made it home, and John had begged him to fuck him hard into the mattress. After John had fallen asleep.

Sherlock slides out from underneath John’s sleep-heavy arm. He tip-toes through their flat and up the stairs to an old trunk that John keeps unlocked, because Sherlock had made a promise. He sinks to his knees, and he shines down the light from his mobile into the rough, old wood, and he moves aside folded red and gold robes and worn books until he finds a single photograph.

He knows the photograph would be moving if John was holding it in his hand. Instead Sherlock looks down and sees two young boys, not even teens, frozen on the page in a way that somehow looks wrong. They’re on a train platform, one Sherlock Holmes has never before seen, and there is a small pile of battered old luggage off to the side. Crowds dressed in strange cloaks and cages holding owls. A puff of smoke, the “Hogwarts Express,” and every hand holding a stick of wood.

And Sherlock gasps when a young John Watson looks up at him from the glossy page, nervous and trying to smile with a brand new wand clutched in his small hand. And there is a taller boy standing next to him, with long, greasy black hair, with his arm around John’ shoulders, unaware of the stares at their backs.

And eleven-year-old John Watson’s wrists are covered in dirt and bruises, and the taller boy’s wrists have no marks on them at all.

So Sherlock clutches the photograph in his hands, and runs out the door in the dead of night, sprinting until he reaches Mycroft’s office by the light of streetlamps. And Mycroft looks at him with pity, and hands Sherlock a special glowing key he says will let him see the information he wants for the next three hours.

Three hours later, when dawn is just starting to creep up over the earth, spilling faint light between the bookshelves on the highest floor of the library where Sherlock sits, the magical history book in his hands suddenly turns into a book on British architecture. Sherlock stares at the spot on the page where there had been a photograph of long, black hair, and the words he’s spent three hours trying to memorize run freshly through his mind.

A Dark Mark on a forearm, and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Slytherins and Gryffindors and Death Eaters in white masks. John Watson as seeker of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Harry Potter, and the Order of the Phoenix, and the day Lord Voldemort lost. And a spy for the Order who died after a snake ripped out his neck.

And Severus Snape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO much for reading my fun little side-story! And my first official venture into blessed Potterlock territory. You all are lovely, and kind, and make me want to write and create forever. I'm beyond grateful.
> 
> This fic won't be terribly long, so stay tuned :)


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!
> 
> ***In light of recent comments left on this fic, I have made the hard decision to remove those comments that hurt myself, as the author, or my fellow readers as other commenters. Fandom should be a place of healing, joy, and contentment, however you're choosing to participate. If this story is not bringing you healing, joy, or contentment, then I'd ask you please leave that out of the comments section, where other people in fandom are trying to find their joy. Other methods of contacting me can be found in my profile if you have any questions.***

1977

It all went to shit two weeks before Severus began his sixth year at Hogwarts.

They were sitting on the roof of one of the flipped over railway cars, surrounded by the same rubbish that had been there since before either of them were born. John leaned back on one elbow, squinting his eyes in the heavy sun, and the crisp black t-shirt he wore pulled taut over his new body – the muscles he had gained from last year spent as Gryffindor’s new seeker. Severus tore his eyes away and looked down at his own legs, still too thin and too long.

“You think all this talk about a war coming is actually true?” John asked out of the blue.

Severus frowned. “In the Middle East? There’s wars already going on – already started.”

“No, I mean. . . I mean in our world.” John lowered his voice. “The Wizarding world.”

And all of a sudden, Severus felt like he was walking on top of very thin glass. “Well, there is that man. The one with the V,” he said back, as if he didn’t know exactly what the V stood for, and as if he didn’t already know every word that man had ever proclaimed. “They say he’s gaining a following. But he’s just one man.”

John shifted closer to him, one of those things he did that always seemed so impossible it made Severus think he was dreaming. But he wasn’t dreaming, and he could feel John’s pulse as their forearms rested side by side on the hot metal roof. “They say – some of the Gryffindors last term were saying – that the families in Slytherin are all following him. That he’s promising them things.”

“Things?”

“Well, I don’t know. Wealth. Not being shit on all the time.”

Severus grinned at the joke despite himself. He heard his lips form the question hovering in his mind. “You asking me this because you’re worried? Because I’m a Slytherin?”

John shifted, and leaned his entire side against Severus’ thin body, and Severus could feel John’s strong lungs expanding against his as he breathed. “Of course I’m worried,” John said. “You practically have a giant target painted on your back –”

“Well you shouldn’t be,” Severus snapped. He tried to lean away from John – anything to be able to breathe again without being struck dumb by John’s skin against his, without the memory of John Watson touching his skin and healing him again and again and again.

John scooted closer. “I know I shouldn’t be. That I don’t have to be. But I am.”

The air was changing. Severus’ heart beat like a heavy drum in his chest, leaving his tongue heavy and dry in his mouth. “Why are you saying this?” he whispered. And John leaned his head down on Severus’ bony shoulder, brushing his golden hair across Severus’ pale neck.

“I hate how they all treat you,” John finally said under his breath in response.

Five years of torture, of absolute agony navigating the Hogwarts halls, and the thing that finally brought Severus Snape to his knees turned out to be John Watson’s head resting on his shoulder.

Severus swallowed hard, and made sure his voice wouldn’t shake before he spoke. “Not nearly as bad as how you get treated back here,” he said. “When you’re home.” He reached down and placed a clammy hand on John’s bruised skin, holding it there for a moment.

“This isn’t home,” was all John said. And Severus quietly sighed. “I know.”

John shrugged. “But none of them see you. Not even the other Slytherins. It isn’t fair.”

Severus felt his own arm reaching behind John’s broad back, brushing against the thin cotton of his t-shirt. “You shouldn’t be around me so much at school,” he said back.

John leaned closer against his arm. “Why not?”

“It’s not good for you. To be seen with me.”

John stiffened. “Why? Because of our Houses? Because you’re good at Potions and Defense?”

“Because I’m _dark_ ,” Severus cut in. He felt terrified rage boiling in his gut, and sat up quickly so that no part of his body was touching John’s warm, smooth skin. “How can you not see that? That they’re all right about me? That I don’t –”

Severus froze when John Watson placed his hand over his mouth. “Shut up,” John hissed. “None of that is bloody true at all.”

And Severus wanted to respond, to retort, but he couldn’t even draw in a breath. Because John Watson’s fingertips were pressing against his lips, and John was sucking in a tiny breath, and shivering along his arms even in the bright heat of the sun, and leaning in closer to Severus’ greasy skin. Severus could feel his breath heating the skin of John’s fingertips with warm moisture, and the thought of it sent a strange hum down his spine, pooling in his thighs.

And John looked confused, brow slightly furrowed, as he watched his own fingers drift away from Severus’ frozen mouth and glide back towards his dirty hair. As he ran his fingers through it, carding it behind Severus’ ear, and Severus heard himself moan, so, so softly, beneath his breath as John’s magic tingled across his scalp, and his eyes were so blue, like a perfect swirling memory, and Severus wanted to tell John to place his hands on his bare skin, and heal the dark parts inside of him, and fill him with golden light, and he wanted to tell John that he’s the only person who’s never laughed at his first name, and he wanted to tell John to never place his hands on his bare skin again, because Severus would ruin him, would tarnish him, and John’s hair was the gold of the sun, the brilliant sparks that flew from Severus’ wand when it chose him in the back of Ollivander’s shop, surrounded by cobwebs, and he wanted to tell John Watson that the red and gold of his school ties made his skin look like soft cream, like melted honey, and Severus would walk naked through the Hogwarts Great Hall if it meant John’s parents would never hit him again, and –

“Fucking queers!”

John ripped his hand out of Severus’ hair so hard that long, black strands got caught around his fingers, stinging Severus’ scalp. Severus’ entire vision went grey as he leaped to his feet, and he heard John clamoring up behind him, causing the metal car to clang and groan beneath their feet. 

There were four of them, all older, and two with metal pipes clutched in their palms. And they were running towards them, smiles leering, and hissing out words the color of vomit.

Severus reached for his wand even as John snapped at him not to. He whipped around. “Run, John!” he screamed. “Go and get out of here – run!”

John didn’t move. “Severus, don’t –”

“You think you can protect the little fag?” one of the men yelled. “He’d like any one of us better than your ugly arse. Hand him over here! Let us get a good look!”

And Severus clutched his wand in a sweating palm, and hated himself as he pointed it straight at John, straight between his eyes. “I swear to Merlin I’ll hex you if you don’t leave,” he called out. “Run, now!”

And John looked at him for the very first time with fear clouding out his blue eyes, and he turned on his heels and ran, golden hair soaring like the sun as he leaped between railcars, a blooming sunflower carried on the stale breeze. 

Severus turned back to the men, nearing him now, and he felt his magic shake the foundations of the earth. The air turned to blackness around him, and a sharp wind hissed, and his wand felt like pure black fire in his palm.

“Shit, what the fuck is he --?”

But the man couldn’t answer, because Severus was shooting every hex he’d ever learned straight at their faces. And he knew, even as the darkness surrounded him so thickly he could no longer imagine John’s hair, that it was worth the detentions, worth even one thousand expulsions, to protect John Watson from having to be called the same word that Severus’ father called him every day of the summer.

 

\--

 

2005

After two straight weeks of John waking up clutching his wand with tears in his eyes, Sherlock asks him, over tea and toast, to tell him about what it was like to go to a wizarding school.

John halts with his buttered toast midway to his lips, and his other hand stops its fidgeting against the worn wooden surface of the kitchen table, and Sherlock fears that maybe his conclusions had been entirely wrong, and that he’s screwed everything up irreparably, and that John will stay silent and storm out of his sight.

But instead John gets the precious gleam in his eyes that Sherlock had been hoping he would. “That’s . . . yeah. Actually, I think I’d like to. To tell you about that,” John finally says.

Sherlock keeps his face serene, and his bum seated firmly in his chair, but what he wants to do is leap up from the table and dash to the open window and cry out with all the air in his lungs, “John Watson is going to tell me about wizarding school! After four years!”

He leans back in his seat, and waits for John to begin, willing his feet not to wiggle with impatience, but suddenly John is up from the kitchen table, wand out and waving in his hand. 

“We should . . . there’s so much I could show you! You could read all my books from school, A History of Magic, and Potions and Herbology. And then there’s the spells – you’ll love Transfiguration – turning objects into other things. Oh, and runes! Giant books full of runes! And there’s the sweets – little chocolate frogs that move, and every flavor bean -- I could take you to the Three Broomsticks! You’ll meet Ollivander – see the stool I sat on when I had my first butterbeer. You can get Potions ingredients, and experiment on all the food, and --”

John’s practically running about the flat, with items zooming through the air by the force of his wand, and the entire room crackles and pulses with the sparks of his magic, enveloping Sherlock so strongly he thinks he won’t be able to breathe.

Because he’s wanted this, how he’s _wanted_ this, since the first moment he saw the indentation on John’s finger from holding a wand in a sterile Bart’s lab.

Sherlock knows every mission that John went on in the army – knows the names of every single soldier who lived, and died, beneath his hands. He knows the sizes of John’s shoes in every make and brand, and the items on his ideal grocery list, and his grocery list when funds are low. He knows what John’s tongue tastes like at two o’clock in the afternoon, and at two o’clock in the morning, and what he sounds like when he comes. He knows the way John’s eyelashes feel when they flutter against his cheek, and every single film John’s seen, and his favorite curse words to use in descending order.

But he wants to know. . . he wants to know every single spell that John knows how to cast, and what he looks like flying on a broom above the clouds. He wants to know the consistency of every Potion John can brew, and the names of every Professor he ever had, and the way the magic feels on the tip of his tongue. He wants to see every piece of magical clothing that John has ever worn, and taste every magical food he’s ever eaten, and feel every stone that makes up the Hogwarts walls. He wants to know how old he was when he stopped getting bruises on his wrists. And when he first learned to wash his clothes. And whether he can feel the magic thrumming in his blood. He’s wanted and he’s wanted and he’s wanted and he’s never asked because he _promised_.

The promise he broke forty-three days ago when he saw a moving photograph of Severus Snape in a library book just before dawn.

But now John Watson is filled with such light, beaming out of him the way it had the first time he ever joined Sherlock on a case, that Sherlock can’t do anything except let John throw clothes at him, and follow him tripping over his feet out the front door, and beam down at John when John looks up and places his hand upon Sherlock’s cheek and whispers, “Thank you.”

Two hours later John is so furious he kicks a metal can halfway down the alley.

“The nerve! The fucking nerve! How dare they even think . . . that they know --”

Sherlock tries to make his way towards him, but the magic surrounding John physically hurts his skin when he gets too close. He calls out to him softly. “It’s alright, John. They were right, I’m just a muggle.”

“You are _not_ just a muggle!” John screams. He looks back at the door of the secret wizarding bar, at the entrance to Diagon Alley where Sherlock had been turned away, and Sherlock is afraid that John will run towards it and smash it all with his bare hands. 

“John, it’s alright,” he tries again calmly, even though the disappointment feels like hot nails driving into his own chest, cutting off his lungs. “I shouldn’t be in there.”

John’s face contorts. “You _should_ be fucking in there. You should be in there more than anyone! You should know all of this – you should _know_ \--”

And before Sherlock can decide whether to open his mouth and say that he _does_ know, John is falling into his arms, and his magic is now cool to the touch, and Sherlock catches him and pulls him close to his chest. 

“You should be able to go with me,” John whispers wetly into Sherlock’s shirt. Sherlock’s fingers clutch at John’s back, running through his hair. He can’t think of what to say, and so he stands there, and let’s John’s magic seep onto his own skin, and he tries to count the golden hairs on John’s head to keep his heart from cracking open and splitting in two.

“Non-magical spouses are allowed to go in,” John says quietly after a few minutes, after his chest has stopped shaking, and his muscles feel limp.

And that, more than anything, is what cuts Sherlock the sharpest – slashing through his heart muscles and spilling his blood to the floor. He holds John closer. “Maybe one day,” he says into his hair.

When John finally pulls back, and runs his hands over his wet eyes, Sherlock kisses him on the mouth before John can finish mumbling his apology. They start the walk back to the flat in silence, and Sherlock knows not a single thing more about John’s wizarding school than he knew when he woke up that morning.

It feels like the largest failure he’s ever experienced in his life.

As their front door comes into view, he tries his last attempt to bring the light back into John’s eyes. Sherlock bumps against John’s arm. “You know, if you ever wanted to visit that world to see your friends, or to be with your people, you can go. I wouldn’t mind.”

John huffs a sharp laugh. “I only ever had one friend in that world,” he says to his feet.

And when Sherlock opens his mouth to say, “I’m sorry,” he doesn’t mean for it to come out the way it does – for it to carry behind it the weight of a neck ripped out by the fangs of a snake.

But it does. And John hears it.

John freezes as Sherlock puts his gloved hand on the gleaming doorknob, ready to be home. They look at each other, and the air starts to groan, and Sherlock knows nothing will ever be the same.

“You promised,” John whispers, and then he shoots Sherlock a look that makes Sherlock feel like he’s been pierced with a bullet in his lungs. And John turns on the spot, with an ear-splitting crack, and he vanishes into thin air.

 

\--

 

1978

Severus Snape called John Watson a mudblood on the afternoon of John’s fifteenth birthday.

He’d been going to look for him after finishing one of his NEWT’S up in the library, striding across the grass as invisibly as he could and searching for a head of golden hair. He was going to take John to the far side of the lake, and show him some new Potions ingredients he’d found, and lean against John to feel his lungs expand as he breathed, and drown in the knowledge that John was spending precious time on his fifteenth birthday with _him_.

And instead he’d found James Potter.

“Looking for your little toy?” Potter asked, and his gang slowly sidled up behind him, wands already drawn. 

One of them sneered. Severus didn’t care enough to remember his name. “Nah, Snivellus is looking for his little _girlfriend_ , is what he’s doing.”

“Disgusting,” another one yelled. Severus didn’t look up. He kept his eyes down at his feet, walking along the sloping grass, not paying them any attention. Last week he’d hexed them all so badly that the werewolf’s hair fell out all over his body, and all his pores oozed pus and slime, covering his skin, for nearly three days.

But the small victory hadn’t even been worth the three night’s worth of detentions, not when he could have spent that time studying near John. So Severus refrained.

The Gryffindors surrounded him, all saying the usual inane taunts about his nose, about his robes, about his magic, about his dad. But then: “You gonna wash your greasy hands before you touch him, Snape? Before you ruin him?”

Severus’ hand was on his wand before Potter even finished the sentence in his mouth. “How _dare_ you talk about –”

“ _Expelliarmus_!”

Severus’ fingers flinched as his wand flew back into the grass. The spell bounced against his chest and knocked the air from his lungs, and he stumbled on a tree root.

“Who wants to see Snape fly?” someone cried out.

Immediately Severus felt his feet leave the ground. And just as he was being flipped upside down, just before his robes flew up to cover his face, Severus saw John Watson rushing to him across the grass like a shooting star. 

“What’s under Snivy’s robes?” he heard below him, and then he felt the breeze against his bare legs, because he hadn’t been wearing any trousers beneath his robes, and he heard the entire field laugh in unison at the sight of his stained pants.

He heard John Watson scream out in a gut wrenching voice for them all to stop.

And knowing that – knowing that John Watson was having to look at his bony legs, and his too-old unwashed pants, and his thighs thin enough to fit his fingers around – knowing that was more painful than every slap he’d ever gotten from his father combined.

“ _Expelliarmus_!” he heard again, this time in John’s voice, and he barely had time to think before he went crashing to the ground in a heap.

He struggled to his feet, chest heaving, and clutched his wrist which he knew was now sprained. John was calling out to him, calling his name, and Severus felt darkness in his chest like hot tar.

John reached out for him, but Severus shoved him away. “Don’t touch me,” he hissed. The crowd “ooh’d.” John looked furious, and even though Severus knew it was at Potter and his gang, Severus suddenly wished, more than anything, that John’s fury was directed at him.

Because Severus Snape had ruined John Watson, just like Potter said.

John reached out again. “Was just trying to help you, Sev –”

“I don’t need your bloody help!” Severus yelled. His face burned, and every pair of eyes was on him. He wanted to evaporate.

Potter laughed. “You don’t like your toy anymore?” The other one sneered. “Lover’s tiff?”

“He’s not anything!” Severus heard himself scream, spit flying. “He’s just a mudblood!”

And the earth stopped.

John’s face looked like it had been sliced cleanly in two. Severus heard him gasp. And the last thing he saw before turning and sprinting away towards the forest was John Watson’s eyes, deep blue and wet, and the sun glinting off his soft hair.

-

Later that night, after the whole school was asleep, John found him in the Astronomy Tower. 

Which was stupid, because Severus should have known that John would know to look for him there – in his secret spot. But he’d been an idiot, and he hadn’t been thinking, and now John was staring at him across the vast expanse of the tower floor, flushed with light from the stars.

“Come to call me some more names? To yell at me?” Severus sneered. His voice sounded so much like his father’s he nearly jumped out of his skin.

John didn’t move. Didn’t even cross his arms. “No,” was all he said. And before Severus could reply, John went on, “I came because you stood me up tonight in the library.”

Severus stuttered, gasping for air. The oxygen around him felt too thin. “Stood . . . stood you up? In the library? That’s why you’re h –”

“You said you would help me study for my Potions final, for my birthday, and I waited for you for almost an hour.”

Severus gaped, mouth open, and unconsciously took a step closer to John. “How can you even . . . why aren’t you . . . I called you a mudblood!” he finally yelled.

John’s jaw clenched. “You did,” he said quietly. He took a step closer, until his skin was bathed in moonlight. “But you were just angry.”

“You think I didn’t mean it?”

“Of course you didn’t bloody mean it.”

Severus bristled. “Oh, and you think you know what I really mean? You think you know everything about how I feel?” He was close enough to feel John’s heat in the air, and his legs shivered under the nauseating memory of the cool breeze against his bare thighs. “What do you even know about being angry, John? Tell me – how can you even know what that’s like? To be truly angry?”

John’s chest bulged. “Don’t think I know what it means to be angry? I’m fucking angry right now!”

“Because I called you a name?”

“No –"

“Over a stupid date in a library?”

“Because I’m losing you!”

Severus’ chest ached, and even the wind was silent where they stood on the tower. “Some would say I should be lost.”

“Severus, don’t say that.”

“And now you’re telling me what to say? And how to feel --?”

But John pushed him before he could finish speaking, and Severus barely caught himself from falling. “Did you just --?”

John pushed him again, and again, shoving against him with all of his strength until Severus started pushing back. “The hell are you doing?” he grunted, but John was gripping his arms, fighting against him, throwing his weight against Severus’ thin body.

“John!” he called out, as John reamed into him with all his strength. “John stop!”

“How dare you say I don’t know what it is to be angry!” John yelled in his face, and he whipped out his wand, and Severus mentally prepared himself for a spell to hit him, and instead John’s wand soared through the air, and his voice boomed, “ _Expecto patronum_!”

A brilliant silver brown bear burst from the tip of John’s wand, leaping through the air until it landed silently on all fours on the stone floor of the tower. It looked up towards the night sky and roared, sending a shiver up Severus’ spine, and the power of John’s magic lifted his long, greasy hair up into the air like static. John was panting, clutching his wand as the bear started to run around where they booth stood. The stars hummed.

Severus was awestruck. “How did . . . How did you _do_ that?”

“You want to know what memory I have to think of to be able to do it?” John called out. His skin was glowing, his cheeks were streaked with tears, and his face looked like it was crumbling.

Severus’ heart beat madly in his chest. “How can you even – You’re just a fourth-year! How can you --”

“I think of that day you found me,” John interrupted him quietly. His voice was shaking.

The memory hit Severus so suddenly, so acutely, he feared he would fly back and fall off the tower, tumbling to his death. “When you were balancing on the train tracks?” he whispered.

John’s voice broke. “That’s the only way I can cast the spell,” he choked out. And Severus groaned from deep within his chest, and ran towards John with outstretched arms, and as John fell into him, the bear passed through them, showering Severus’ skin with the warmth of John’s magic before it disappeared into the night sky, bounding up towards the glittering stars.

“I can’t lose that,” John moaned into his chest, and Severus pressed his cheek into John’s golden hair, and pulled him so close against himself it ached, deep in his bones.

“John,” he heard himself saying, over and over again. And without thinking he lifted his head and pressed his cold thin lips against the warm skin on John’s forehead, brushing his nose through John’s hair. And John didn’t pull away in disgust, or try to slip away from Severus’ grasp. Instead he pulled himself closer, and let Severus hold him beneath the night sky, and Severus knew he wasn’t imagining a press of soft lips against his own skin, right at the base of his neck above his unwashed robes.

“Severus,” John whispered, vibrating against his chest, and suddenly Severus ached between his legs. Felt his cock swell with warmth. It was straining against his robes, humiliating and obscene, pushing into John’s belly, and John pressed back against it softly, gently, not letting Severus pull away.

He put his hands on John’s shoulders, trying to pry them apart, but John held on. “It’s ok,” he barely whispered. “It’s ok.”

It was the saddest moment of Severus’ life, sadder even than the morning he looked at his mother’s coffin without John Watson at his side, to know that tonight, when John was choosing to comfort _him_ of all the wizards at Hogwarts – when John was whispering his name even after being called a mudblood on his fifteen birthday – that Severus Snape was _ruining_ him, pressing his filthy shame into John Watson’s skin.

And because John was John Watson, he wasn’t letting him pull away.

After a long time, when Severus realized he could card his fingers through John’s hair for eternity, and after the heat between his legs had finally cooled, Severus spoke. “We should get back.”

John nodded, but didn’t move at all. Didn’t even slacken his grip. And when Severus finally walked him back to Gryffindor tower an hour later, sneaking through the shadows and trying not to make a sound – when he tried to apologize to John Watson, whose eyes were still red and puffy from the tears he’d let fall down the front of Severus’ robes, John wouldn’t let him say he was sorry. And instead John reached up and held a lock of Severus’ hair between his fingers, looking at the black strands like they were pure silver thread.

“Happy birthday, John,” Severus whispered. And John’s smile was even warmer than the one that graced his face the day his wand chose him in the dingy air of Ollivander’s, right before he tasted chocolate ice cream for the very first time.

 

\--

 

2005

John disappears for four and a half days.

Sherlock sits alone in the flat in the dark and doesn’t sleep or drink or eat and counts the fibers in the carpet and thinks that it’s ironic, in a way, that after nearly forty years of living on this earth, and more than half of that time spent chasing after London’s criminal elite, that this – John Watson disappearing into thin air with a piercing crack – will be the thing to finally stop his heart and strike him dead.

His mobile rings and rings until he lets the battery die. Detective Inspector Lestrade bangs on his door, and Molly Hooper slips a handwritten note through the crack in the window, and Sherlock cannot even bring himself to touch the ice cold wood of his violin because John Watson is _gone_ , and he can’t even find him, can’t track down his movements, because he disappeared into _thin air_ , and Sherlock Holmes may be the greatest muggle consulting detective ever known but he sure as hell doesn’t know a bloody thing about finding a wizard.

He wants to know, so deeply the thought becomes the blood seeping through his veins, how the boy in the photo – how Severus Snape – managed to find the wizard John Watson. And he wishes he could sprint across London, and bang on the man’s door, and beg him on his knees to “Find John. Please, find John.”

He stays still for so long that dust settles on the hem of his trousers. 

At exactly three o’clock on the afternoon of the fourth day, John comes home.

He’s carrying a rucksack over his shoulder, and his hair hasn’t been washed, and Sherlock is so bowled over with gratitude, so frighteningly, sickeningly relieved, that he doesn’t even rise from the sofa to greet John at the door, and instead John comes to him, sinking to his knees on the hardwood floor beside the sofa and placing his palms on either side of Sherlock’s gaunt face.

For the first time since Sherlock has ever known him, for the first time in nearly five years, John Watson has dirt underneath his fingernails.

“I thought you were dead,” Sherlock says, and he gulps down a breath when his voice comes out wet. John smiles sadly, holding Sherlock’s stubbled cheeks between his palms so gently it almost hurts. “It’s very difficult to kill a wizard,” he whispers back.

Sherlock’s lips shake. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry –“ he starts to whimper, but John’s fingers gently drape over his mouth, and John is bundling him up, holding all of his bones in his arms, and drawing Sherlock close to his chest.

“I should never have asked you,” John says softly. “I shouldn’t have made you promise.”

“I’m sorry –”

“I should have told you.”

“John, I didn’t mean –”

“I’m ready to tell you now.”

Sherlock freezes, wondering if his sleep-deprived brain is imagining all of this, and if he really isn’t being held by John Watson on the sofa, but maybe he’s just curled up on the floor, in a lonely flat, and nobody will ever tell him why John cries out “ _anapneo_ ” in his sleep.

But John is standing, guiding him towards the kitchen, and Sherlock isn’t imagining anything.

He stands frozen and breathless, heart racing, as John wordlessly points his wand at the rucksack on the floor. The stale air of the flat sings with John’s magic for the first time in four and a half days, and it makes Sherlock want to weep. John’s wand draws a large stone basin out of the rucksack, far too large to have actually been inside of it, and the stone basin is floating weightlessly towards their kitchen table, magically cleared of Sherlock’s half-eaten toasts and experiments.

And John doesn’t even pause, but then holds his wand to his forehead, and shuts his eyes and bites his bottom lip as a long, silver thread is pulled from just under his un-washed hair. And a second silvery thread joins it, swimming through the basin like glittering fish in soft moonlight.

They stare at the basin in silence. Sherlock wants to hold the silver threads in his hands, and push them both between his lips, and slice them into perfect little samples for his microscope, and test every property, every single component within them.

“I can’t –” John starts to say. “There are some things I can’t say. . . now. Not yet.”

Sherlock thinks he nods. Thinks he says back, “of course,” but he can’t be sure.

John’s hand is on his elbow. “But I want you to see this, if nothing else. I need you to understand this.”

Sherlock shuts his mouth tightly against the ten million questions that want to come pouring out, and instead he lets John guide his head down with his hand on the nape of Sherlock’s neck, and Sherlock takes a deep, frantic breath right before his face is pushed into threads of cool silver.

He’s falling. Flying. Tumbling through the void. But John’s warm palm is on his elbow to catch him, and his feet land softly to the earth like sinking into moss, and he can breathe underwater.

Sherlock blinks his eyes, focuses on the scene in front of him, and then gasps.

He is looking at John Watson, wearing a t-shirt down to his knees, and John is balancing on the train tracks, and Sherlock wants to read every clue in the dirt on his forearms, and the bones showing through his skin, but then there is another boy, drowning in black, calling out, “ _how old are you?_ ” and John Watson gets a look on his face right before he whispers, “ _eight_.”

And Sherlock wants to run towards John, scoop him up into his arms and carry him away from the rubbish and the mud. Wants to tell him that one day he will be a hero, saving lives, and he will dash through streets by Sherlock Holmes’ side and save the life of the greatest muggle consulting detective hundreds and thousands of times.

But the other boy, the boy with the greasy black hair, is telling John that he is a wizard, and Sherlock knows, like vomit in the back of his throat, that he – Sherlock Holmes – doesn’t belong in this memory. He doesn’t belong here at all.

He is falling again, flying, tumbling through the void, and this time when he lands he thinks he’s hallucinated the last five years of his life, because he is in a lab at St. Bart’s, and the door is swinging open, and John Watson is limping inside.

And Sherlock watches his younger self ask, “ _Afghanistan or Iraq?_ ”, and John Watson gets a look on his face right before he says, “ _Afghanistan_.”

John’s palm pulls on his elbow, ripping him to the surface, and Sherlock gasps when the air of the flat slaps against his face, and the room spins.

And he is face to face, over the rim of the stone basin, with a glowing brown bear.

The bear’s eyes are deep blue, and his muscles are strong, and his skin carries scars, and his fur is rich velvet, and Sherlock realizes, without needing to be told, that he is staring at John’s soul.

“That’s my Patronus,” Sherlock hears John say behind him.

Sherlock stares into the bear’s eyes, not breathing, and nods.

“I just showed you the only two memories that have ever worked for me to cast it.”

And Sherlock Holmes – the greatest consulting detective, the only consulting detective in the history of the world – he solves the most important case of his career leaning over his own kitchen table. Because he realizes now, gazing into the eyes of an impossibly glowing brown bear, that the looks on John Watson’s face right before he said “ _eight_ ” and “ _Afghanistan_ ” had been exactly, irrefutably the same.

 

\--

 

1980

The Dark Mark was more painful than Severus could have ever imagined.

It seared into his skin, like fresh flames licking at his blood, and it pulsed and throbbed and ached until he wanted to cut his own arm off at the elbow.

But Severus didn’t regret it – not really – because John Watson didn’t study with him anymore, or sit beside him on the grass, or rush to him through Hogwarts Halls.

And John Watson no longer did any of those things because Severus wouldn’t let him. Not since the morning after that night on the Astronomy Tower, when Severus had woken up and nearly thrown up at the memory of his shame pressed against John’s belly, and John was so bright, like the golden sun, and when Severus tried to pass by him in the Great Hall the next morning to say hello it physically hurt him to walk so close.

So after six months of Severus not letting John Watson burn him, John started just nodding instead of saying hello. And after one year, the nodding turned to glancing in the other direction, from where John walked within seas of red and gold. And the summer before Severus’ last year at Hogwarts, he crouched, folding his too-long limbs, behind one of the abandoned railway cars. And he watched John Watson look down at the twisted train tracks he used to balance on, and John stood there for almost an hour, until the dust started to coat his skin, and then John walked the other way, and didn’t try to stand up on the tracks, and Severus didn’t see John set foot in their neighborhood again.

And when he had knelt before the man with the V, before Lord Voldemort, and kissed the hem of his robe, when he had held out his arm, and stifled his screams, as the Mark was burned into his skin, Severus turned around afterwards to see that no one was glancing the other way, and nobody’s gaze burned him if he tried to get too close, and everyone clapped their hands when Lord Voldemort whispered, “Welcome, Severus Snape.”

The night after Severus promised to follow Lord Voldemort to the ends of the earth, he sat up in the Astronomy Tower, and he pressed his fingers to the tender, burned skin hidden under his sleeve, and he tried only to think of things that were dark green and black, instead of brilliant and gold.

And John Watson found him.

John ran to him across the stone floor before Severus could disappear, and his warm, smooth hands grabbed onto Severus’ bony fingers, and he whispered in the dark, “is it true?”

Severus couldn’t answer, not when John’s hands were burning like the sun against his pale skin. So he sat, and didn’t even try to protest, as John slowly rolled up the sleeve covering his forearm to reveal a black snake, wound through a skull.

And for the first time since he felt his own erection press into John’s belly, Severus clenched his jaw as hot shame crept across his skin like bile.

John didn’t gasp, or look away, or throw Severus’ arm out of his hands and yell in disgust. He just looked at his forearm in the moonlight, and held the skin softly in his hands, and then Severus tried to whisper, “no,” through a choked, wet throat as John placed his clean hands over the Mark, over the swollen and bleeding skin, and forced his magic into Severus’ body to try to heal it.

John cried out and whipped his hands away like he’d been burned. Severus’ heart stopped in his throat.

“I can’t heal it,” John whispered. He held onto Severus’ hand so tightly his fingers cracked. “Severus, I’m sorry. It’s too dark, I can’t heal it –”

And Severus leaned forward and kissed John Watson right on the mouth. John sucked in a breath, and froze, and Severus burned up his spine with adrenaline and fear because he was _kissing_ John Watson, pressing his ugly thin lips to John’s perfect, wet mouth, and breathing his same air, and John wasn’t screaming at him or pulling away, but he was fisting his fingers through the front of Severus’ dirty robes, and kissing him _back_ , tongue sliding into his mouth and tasting the lips that had said, “ _I am your servant. I am the Darkness. I follow Lord Voldemort_ ,” and Severus pressed his clammy fingers to the red and gold tie around John’s throat, and kissed the actual sun, and smelled the soap on John’s cheeks, and knew that every wizard on earth could point their wands at him in that moment and cry out “ _Avada Kedavra!_ ” in unison and Severus would gladly drop dead with a smile on his face. Because he now knew, for the one and only time in his dark life, what it felt like to kiss John Watson.

John pulled back, panting hard, and Severus realized that his dirty hands were wound through John’s soft, clean hair, ruining the bright strands, and Severus forgot to school his face in time before John finally opened his eyes, over kiss swollen lips, and Severus knew that John could see the full fear in his eyes over what he’d done. Could see the regret, and the nausea, and the terror. The “ _what have I done?_ ”

And John held Severus’ left hand and brought the back of it up to his lips, kissing the arm that was now permanently marked with the most powerful darkness – the Mark that showed that inside Severus’ soul was nothing but snarling rot.

John kissed it, and his blue eyes looked so, so sad.

“Let me wash your hair,” John said, and Severus realized John was saying goodbye.

So he followed John silently, on numb legs, through the dark Hogwarts halls. Followed him to the bathing pools, and watched as John wordlessly heated the water, and conjured up oils and lavender soap. And Severus let John Watson drape his bony limbs across his lap, and stared up into John’s face as John wove his golden fingers through the black, greasy strands, and John washed his hair forever, and kept the water from dripping into Severus’ eyes, and the only sounds were their breathing, and the drips of the soft water, and the sound John’s lips made when they pressed once to Severus’ forehead.

And John lifted Severus’ left forearm and washed the skin there too, until the ugly red scabs were washed away, and the surface was smooth.

Severus sat bonelessly, barely seeing the world in front of his eyes, as John’s magic wove across his scalp to dry his wet hair, strand by strand.

John held his hand before he left. “I can’t lose you, Sev,” John whispered.

It wasn’t until after Severus watched John walk away – watched the sun be swallowed by the dark, a sunset that wouldn’t be followed by a sunrise - that he realized what John was trying to say, what his words really meant.

“ _I’ve already lost you,_ ” John had just told him. “ _But I’ll lose you all over again if you die._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A gigantic, heartfelt thank you to everyone who has chosen to follow me (and trust me!) with this little side passion project :)
> 
> I know my views on Snape, and the Marauders, and the HP-verse in general are more in the minority, so just remember this is all for fun! And everyone's life experiences lead them to view characters in different lights.
> 
> I promise I'll respond to all comments as soon as I can! I am truly, deeply grateful for all of the kind feedback on this story so far. We're now halfway through, parts 3 and 4 will be posted as soon as I can write them! And then I'll get back to good ol' priest!lock, I solemnly swear.
> 
> Y'all are the greatest.
> 
> ***In light of recent comments left on this fic, I have made the hard decision to remove those comments that hurt myself, as the author, or my fellow readers as other commenters. Fandom should be a place of healing, joy, and contentment, however you're choosing to participate. If this story is not bringing you healing, joy, or contentment, then I'd ask you please leave that out of the comments section, where other people in fandom are trying to find their joy. Other methods of contacting me can be found in my profile if you have any questions.***


	3. Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all of you who stood up for me after the last chapter, thank you. I seriously considered abandoning this story, and it is 100% due to all of you who reached out with kind words and encouragement that Parts 3 and 4 of this fic could still be written. Without you I wouldn't have had the strength.
> 
> To those of you who are not enjoying this story, or who find it to be unpleasant to read in any way, I would beg of you to simply walk away from it, and just move on. The comments section should be a place of joy for both the authors and readers who are enjoying their chosen fanworks, and leaving non-positive feedback, even if you feel it to be constructive critique, can take that joy away. I started writing this fic, taking time out of my own day and life, because doing so brought me joy. And it brings me joy to share it for free with other people who want to see this crossover of universes play out. If this story doesn't bring you joy, that's perfectly alright, but please keep that feedback private, or to yourself.
> 
> Also, a quick note on the rating: I've changed this to Explicit, but feel it could still well be classified as Mature depending on personal opinion. I'm truly sorry if the rating change to Explicit made it so you do not wish to keep reading!

2005

The front of the house looks so innocent, so perfectly innocuous, that for a moment Sherlock believes he must have been given the wrong address. Because there is absolutely no way on earth that one of the most powerful witches on the planet lives within the little house of brick and ivy standing before him.

But he knows it’s even more impossible that Mycroft Holmes would give him an incorrect address, even for a house that was spelled to be invisible. So Sherlock knocks, and he waits, and he goes over, for the millionth time, exactly what words he’ll say when this infamous witch opens up her front door.

And the door opens so quickly Sherlock’s hand is still poised in the air from knocking, and Hermione Granger immediately says, “I know you – you’re Sherlock Holmes!”

Sherlock Holmes forgets every word – every single syllable – that he had been planning to say. She looks so young, almost impossibly young, and she has a wriggling toddler perched on her hip. Sherlock wants to rub his eyes, thinks maybe he’s seeing hallucinations, because this woman – this _young_ woman – cannot possibly be part of the trio who helped save John’s world and people from destruction. And she, at almost half his age, shouldn’t be able to render Sherlock Holmes speechless.

But she is, and she does.

It’s _fascinating_ in the extreme.

Sherlock follows dumbly as she beckons him inside, and he steps gingerly over a broom that’s sweeping itself into a floating dustpan. The whole house smells like cinnamon and cloves.

“I was just doing a bit of baking,” Hermione says, reading his mind, and Sherlock almost laughs, because the floating whisk whipping the batter by itself on the kitchen countertop could not, in any other place on earth, be called “baking.”

With a flick of a wand, so similar to John’s it makes Sherlock physically ache with a flash of homesickness, he watches silently as Hermione clears the kitchen table, and brings over some tea.

“Why did you let me in?” he suddenly asks.

He thinks Hermione rolls her eyes. “I told you – I know who you are.”

“Why are you letting me see magic if you know I’m a muggle?”

Hermione’s lips quirk up at the corners, but there’s a sadness in her eyes which Sherlock catches before it’s gone. “You’re with John Watson, aren’t you?” she says back. “You’re his . . .”

Sherlock can’t bear to wait and see how she’ll finish that sentence, so he interrupts, “yes.”

Hermione shrugs as she waves her wand to pour out some tea, automatically fixing Sherlock’s exactly how he likes it. “Well then, I’m assuming all of this is nothing you haven’t seen before,” she says. He forgets to say thank you as she passes it to him, and she doesn’t seem to mind. Sherlock clutches his tea, and doesn’t ask what the toddler’s name is, and Hermione doesn’t offer it.

The scrape, scrape, scrape of the whisk on the kitchen counter beats in time with his blood, and Sherlock’s brain finally kicks into gear, like a car pushing its way through thick mud, piecing together the only way this Hermione Granger could have known of John Watson, the only possible connection. . .

“If you know about John, then you must know about –”

“Professor Snape, yes.”

“He was in the Order with you,” Sherlock says. Hermione’s eyes widen a fraction, surprised at his casual knowledge. “He was, yes,” she agrees.

Sherlock swallows hard, forcing himself to hold her gaze. “How much do you know?”

Hermione’s eyes look weighted down as she takes a sip of her tea, resettling the toddler on her lap whom Sherlock has continued to ignore. “I know enough,” she says quietly. She places a small chunk of fresh scone in the toddler’s sticky hand. Her eyebrows draw together worried. “And how is John?”

And Sherlock wants to open his mouth and say that John is wonderful, that John has never been better in his life, because they’re living together, and John helps him solve his cases, and John wakes up in his bed, in _their_ bed, and John isn’t being shot at, and he has clean clothes and bedsheets, and he’s told Sherlock at every hour of the day that he loves him, and loves being with him.

But instead Sherlock licks his lips and says, “Not well,” for the very first time. And for some reason, in this strange kitchen with biscuits baking themselves, and an anonymous toddler on a young woman’s lap, and a witch who apparently knew Sherlock Holmes’ name before he even knew hers, for some reason Sherlock finds himself opening his mouth and telling her everything – from the first moment he saw the indentation on John Watson’s finger, to that moment three days ago, when Sherlock gasped for air over a stone basin and came face to face with a glowing bear.

And at the very end of it, after she’s sat listening to him without even interrupting, like Sherlock does with his clients, Hermione Granger takes a deep breath and says, “So you’ve come to see me because you know that I have a Time Turner?”

Sherlock can’t hide his shock. His mouth hangs open. “Yes, but how –”

“Don’t make me explain it,” Hermione says, suddenly grinning. “I’ve read all of your papers; many of us do who work for the Ministry. It’s much easier if you can see through spells with your own eyes instead of having to cast a Detection Charm. But anyways, if I explain myself it will all sound stupid and obvious.”

Sherlock takes a sip of lukewarm tea to buy himself time. “You really are the smartest witch of your age,” he finally says.

Hermione sets the toddler to the floor, shushing it when it starts to whine. “Would you have come here in the first place if you didn’t already believe that?”

Sherlock tips his cup in acknowledgement. The room falls silent, only the sound of the biscuits shaping themselves into little hearts on the baking sheet breaks the quiet. Hermione waits, and Sherlock is grateful for it, because he finds he can’t quite catch his breath.

Then, “John doesn’t know you’re here,” Hermione says quietly, and it isn’t a question. Sherlock grips the handle of his teacup so hard it might crack. “No,” he whispers.

Hermione shifts in her wooden chair, brushing her curls behind an ear. “And you know that . . . I’m sure you know enough to know that John might ---”

“Choose him? Choose Severus Snape over me if he goes back to save his life? Of course I know that. It’s the only thing I’m actually sure of in all of this – that he might choose him.”

Hermione bites the inside of her cheek. “And you’d still be willing to do this? To offer him this chance?” And Sherlock realizes that somehow, out of nowhere, the small golden device is currently sitting in her outstretched palm, waiting for his answer.

“I’d do anything,” he hears himself say, and just like that the little necklace, this object that can _shift time itself_ is pressed into his fingers.

“You don’t need me to tell you how utterly dangerous this is,” Hermione says softly. “That there could be irreparable consequences, and that you can’t be seen, and that there’s no way of really knowing . . . knowing if it will all work out the way you would like.”

Sherlock nods solemnly. “I know.”

Hermione suddenly laughs. “Actually, I can’t quite believe I’ve just agreed to hand this over to a muggle. I’ve never even lent it to another wizard . . . Ronald will have a fit.”

Sherlock feels his lips quirk up against his will. “John’s told me before I’m not just a muggle,” he says, and Hermione hums, like she’s just been told a deep, revealing truth. “No,” she agrees softly. “No, you aren’t.”

She sits up quickly in her chair, hard enough that some of Sherlock’s cold tea spills onto the table. “There’s one more thing,” she says suddenly, and Sherlock’s gut twists when he sees she looks nervous. “You know . . . well, I’m sure you’ve considered this, that you’d have to wait – to live and remain unseen from the time you go back until you again reach the present. From 1998 until now.”

Sherlock has considered this – figured it was how it all worked – and still the knowledge sits like bile in the back of his throat. “I knew it was a possibility,” he says.

Hermione looks off into the distance, eyes scanning back and forth, and then she nods her head slightly, like she’s made a decision. “Actually, there’s something I’ve been working on with my team – where I work at the Ministry. A potion one could drink that would take you right back – you wouldn’t have to wait for the present to come around anymore. It would reverse the Time Turner.” She leans forward, hair falling into her face. “But it’s not thoroughly tested, it’s not ready at all for public use. It could bring you back to the present or . . . “

Sherlock forces himself to speak. “Or?”

“Or, we don’t really know, yet, exactly.”

The room falls back into silence – even the toddler stops squirming. Sherlock Holmes sits still in the rickety, unfamiliar kitchen chair and thinks about when he was finally allowed into the hospital room to see John after the bullet had grazed his thigh, and how John had looked at him as if he’d never seen him before and said, “ _Christ, but I love you too_ ” and without any warning pulled Sherlock down by the neck to kiss him.

He thinks about this, and he feels his eyes start to sting, and he knows that if John Watson had died, if John Watson’s neck had been ripped out by a snake, and if he’d died alone, bleeding to death on a cold floor with nobody to stop the blood – Sherlock knows that he would do _anything_ , rip heaven from earth, stop time itself, leave his whole world behind. . . he would do anything for the chance to save John Watson’s life if he had taken his last breath alone – alone and afraid.

“I would do anything,” Sherlock says aloud again in Hermione Granger’s kitchen, and then he feels a second item placed gently into his hand – a recipe for a Potion.

 

\--

 

1981

The first and only time John saw Severus Snape cast an Unforgivable Curse was in a moving picture on the front page of the Daily Prophet. 

John was going to be late for class, and he flung himself onto one of the Great Hall benches to wolf down his breakfast, with his school tie still draped around his neck and his bookbag hanging off one shoulder. His teammates surrounded him, talking Quidditch and who was going to ask out which girl for the weekend trip to Hogsmeade, and then the owls flew in to deliver the mail, and a rolled-up Prophet was dropped into John’s lap, and he unrolled the front page and froze.

John couldn’t hear a single thing – not the sound of hundreds of forks and spoons scraping on plates, or a hall full of young wizards rushing to class, or nine of his friends asking him if he was alright – because he was holding a page of the Daily Prophet in a shaking hand, and he was watching a group of wizards in black cloaks and white masks cast curses on a line of muggle-born wizards cowering in front of a fence. 

And he recognized, just like he would recognize his own face in a mirror, the thin body of one of the Death Eaters hidden beneath a black cloak, green fire spurting from his wand across the page, pale face covered by a mask.

“ _You-Know-Who’s Reign of Terror Continues in Surrey_ ” the floating headline declared, and it was the first time John had laid eyes on Severus Snape since he and thirteen other Slytherin seventh-years disappeared in the dead of night last term, never to be found by any of their Professors, presumed missing, or runaways, or dead.

Until now.

“Watson, you all right there?” he heard someone ask. His teammate’s face fell when he saw what headline John was staring at. “Aw, Christ, mate, anyone you know?”

And John knew that his friend – his teammate of over four years – was asking him if he knew any of the wizards being cursed and murdered lined up along the fence. And John wanted to rip the paper in his hands and scream when he couldn’t turn to him and say, “Actually that man – that Death Eater in the middle – he bought me my wand in Diagon Alley. And he taught me how to read. And he found me one day . . . he _found_ me. He let me wash his hair right after he kissed me. . .”

But John couldn’t say any of that – couldn’t even imagine what his teammate’s face would look like if he did. So John shook his head. “No, I . . . just thought I recognized someone is all.”

His teammate shrugged. “I say them Aurors will have a handle on ‘im soon enough. Nothing but a bunch of low-life’s and outcasts following him anyways. You’ll see.” And he went back to his porridge like nothing had happened at all, already laughing at another Gryffindor who accidentally managed to turn his left hand into a balloon.

And the world kept turning. His teammates around him continued to eat their breakfasts, and talk with their mouths full, and make jokes about Slytherins, and strategize for that weekend’s Match against Ravenclaw. And the Great Hall ebbed and flowed with hundreds of students on their way to classes, worrying about NEWT’s and memorized spells and parchments full of essays, and one of his Professors was scolding a little second-year for running in the halls with untied shoes.

And nobody acknowledged that people were dying just beyond the Hogwarts walls. Nobody cared that Severus Snape’s soul was forever doomed beneath a white mask.

John tried to breathe as he clutched the front page of the Prophet, hunched over and wrinkling the paper in his hands. He saw the same scene over and over in his mind – how he had woken up early in the morning last term to find a small parcel at the foot of his bed, and how he’d opened it, still half-asleep, and found a NEWT-level Potions textbook inside it, with small black handwriting littering every empty space in the margins.

And somehow, like a siren blaring in his chest, he had known. He’d sprinted from bed, in just a t-shirt and his pants, and run through the empty Hogwarts halls like mad, ignoring the paintings telling him it was too early for him to be out of bed. He’d banged on the door to the Slytherin Common Room and yelled until someone finally let him in, and then he’d rushed by them, tripping on his own feet up the stairs until he reached the farthest bed, back in the corner and all alone.

It had been empty – the covers neatly folded back, and the belongings gone. 

John had turned around, flying back through the halls, rushing past the Professors now hurrying to the Slytherin dormitories to see what was wrong, and he’d sprinted out across the misty grasses, running like hell towards the edge of the forest. And he’d screamed out Severus’ name in the silence, begging the universe that he could somehow hear him. He’d conjured his brown bear and sent him off into the woods, determined to find him and drag him back. And two hours later, after his Patronus came back empty handed with its head bowed low, the quietest sixth-year Gryffindor – Abigail Harris – had come looking for John Watson. She’d given him a robe to wear, and led him back silently into the castle, and never told a soul that she had found him screaming Severus Snape’s name on hoarse lungs.

“Oi, Watson! We’re gonna be late!” John suddenly heard. He blinked hard, flinching as a hand clapped down on his shoulder. “Stop daydreaming – let’s go!”

John looked up at his teammates, looked once around the Great Hall, and looked down at the crumpled Prophet in his hands.

Then John Watson rose up from the long table in the Great Hall for the very last time, not saying a word as he left them all behind him. He stopped in the nearest toilet and vomited the second he closed the door, pressing his face against the cool tile until he knew he would no longer be sick. He walked straight up to Dumbledore’s office, and told him he was going home, and didn’t stick around to hear the rebuttal. And he packed up his trunk, walked alone to the edge of the grounds, and Apparated to the middle of London. 

And the next day he wandered into the front doors of St. Bart’s, knowing that the only thing he had ever been good at was healing people, and wondering if he could finally learn to do any of it by hand. And as he walked through the front doors, without any paperwork or transcripts or money to his name, he saw a flier tacked to the wall with information on joining the British Armed Forces.

And John Watson learned how to heal by hand, learned incredibly, inhumanly fast, and he signed a paper promising he would heal Her Majesty’s troops. He was fitted for a camouflage uniform, and his wand stayed locked up in the bottom of an old trunk, covered in dust. 

And the thought of Afghanistan, of being as far away as possible from magic and train tracks and long black hair, sounded almost as lovely, almost as beautiful, as the way Severus Snape had first told him about Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when he was ten years old.

Almost.

 

\--

 

1982

The Dark Lord looked straight at Severus Snape across the inky black table when he crooned, “All Mudbloods need to be eliminated – even those choosing to live in the muggle world. They must be extinguished in order for our cause to succeed.”

Severus bowed his head, along with everybody else seated around the table. “Yes, my Lord.”

The long, thick snake in the corner hissed, and Severus shivered.

“Severus,” the Dark Lord said softly. “Our dear Severus, you are blessed among us.”

Severus looked up, eyes locking with two white slits. “Why is that, my Lord?”

The Dark Lord massaged one of his thin wrists with his other hand. “You, out of all of us, have the most direct access to one such vermin we seek.”

A strange, muffled snicker echoed around the table, and his blood ran cold. “How is that, my Lord?”

Voldemort flashed his teeth – a hint of a smile. “John Watson trusts you,” he said softly.

Severus had not heard that name spoken aloud in over a year. And the Mark on his left forearm burned so sharply it brought tears to his flat, black eyes. For the very first time, the thick black air of the Dark Lord’s chambers felt suffocating instead of mysterious, and the sour, serpentine odor within the smoke stuffed itself down his dry throat and flamed up his spine.

Severus wanted to run.

“Indeed, he does,” Severus somehow managed to say, and he forbid himself, absolutely forbid himself to think of his thin lips pressed to John Watson’s mouth, or the way his heart had beat when John leaned back against him, or the way John smelled at the base of his neck, or else the Dark Lord would see, he would _know_ , and everything would be lost –

“Well?” Voldemort asked, and there was excitement humming in the air. “Should he not be dealt with?”

“My Lord, I ask –” Severus suddenly said, and the whole room froze.

“You ask?” Voldemort whispered.

Severus swallowed hard, fighting with himself not to cry out in pain as his forearm blazed. “My Lord, simply that . . . John Watson is serving in the muggle military, from what I’ve heard. He is near the front lines. Surely we could leave him to be killed that way, and not waste our valuable time. He is not such a threat.”

The Dark Lord smiled then, a true, greasy smile, and the woman next to Severus rubbed her hands together in glee.

“Of course,” Voldemort said like silk. “How could we forget? The brave soldier, with the golden hair.”

Severus couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even see the room before him, and the darkness made his skin feel like it was being peeled from his bones. He saw John’s face, pale and blank, in a dirt-filled ditch, and covered in blood. A drop of sunlight in the mud, slowly snuffed out, slowly growing cold . . .

The Dark Lord rose like a puff of smoke, and the circle of Death Eaters followed in silent unison. Severus gripped the edge of the table with both hands to keep from falling.

“Perhaps, our dear Severus, we could use that time spent on other things, as you say. Fighting our cause closer to home.”

Severus’ voice was barely a breath. “Yes, my Lord –”

“And perhaps, dear Severus, we could leave the _problem_ of John Watson up to . . .” Voldemort flicked a fly in the air with his fingers, and it dropped to the floor, “. . . a stray bullet, as you have suggested.”

“Yes –”

“Who knew you were such a young strategist,” Voldemort said, and Severus realized with a clench in his gut that the Dark Lord knew _everything_. He knew that Severus’ lips had tasted John Watson’s mouth, and that he still woke up hard after dreams of strong, freckled skin, and that Severus would strip naked, would be utterly humiliated, would die alone on this inky black table, if it meant that he tried to save the life of John Watson.

Voldemort knew it all.

And Severus closed his eyes and reached deep into his mind, into his soul. He picked up the glowing hope of ever seeing John Watson again in his palms, and he whispered goodbye to it, softly pressing his lips to its warm surface, and then he crushed it – sliced it in two. Burned it with the black fire of his wand. He would renounce everything, he would destroy every memory, he would walk head-high through the gates of Hell, he would do _anything_ to prove to Lord Voldemort that John Watson meant nothing, and was not worth their time.

The Dark Lord turned wordlessly to leave, black robes floating across the floor. The Death Eaters followed, heads bowed, and Severus donned his hood and started to join them, but then he heard one word - “ _Crucio!_ ” - hissed like a snake from the foggy doorway.

And he dropped in agony, screaming in pain, as the curse landed between his legs. His lungs ripped apart, and he heard, “for your insolence,” crooned into his ear. And then the world went black.

-

Later that night, Severus woke up alone on the floor in the dark, and his limbs screamed at him, and there was a thick, aching ball of pain between his legs, where the curse had hit. He struggled to his knees, and wept aloud at the pain, and forced his body to flee the house to a place where he could Apparate. 

And he met with Albus Dumbledore, crying with his head in his hands on the hillside like a small child. He begged him to save him – save John Watson.

“But Severus,” Dumbledore said softly, “this is what you wanted, is it not? For his kind to be gone?”

The words made Severus heave, clutching at his chest which he feared would explode – would burn into ash. “I would die for him,” he choked out. “I would be torn apart.”

Dumbledore hummed, standing utterly still. “You would turn your back on everything? You would risk your own life?”

“I would give up my own _magic_ ,” Severus begged him.

And Dumbledore stepped closer to him in the rain, and his rage felt like fire against Severus’ skin.

“Then turn, Severus Snape,” he commanded. “Give up this _filth_. Do not even rest until the Dark Lord has fallen. Be on our side.”

Severus gaped up at him. “Be your spy?”

And when Dumbledore nodded, Severus felt his throat burn. “They’re going to kill him,” he whispered through numb lips. “A stray bullet in the muggle war, to look like an accident.” Severus bent forward, pressing his face to Dumbledore’s wet shoes. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I’ll tell you everything. Just, please. . . please --”

There was a hand on his shoulder. “Severus,” he said softly. “I will do what I can for young John Watson. But you must understand, he has turned his back on this world. There are some things I cannot save him from.”

“Please,” Severus sobbed.

“Get up. End this display and prove to me that you are genuine. That you now work for the Light.”

And Severus rose to his feet, knees shaking, and tried not to clutch at Dumbledore’s robes. The wind raged against his back, blowing his unwashed hair into his face, across his own lips. 

“I love him,” Severus whispered, and Dumbledore looked so furious it caused lightning to strike.

“You understand you most likely will not see John Watson ever again,” he said flatly. “That you gave that up when you allowed this.” Dumbledore held up Severus’ left arm like a dirty rag.

And Severus wanted to tell Dumbledore how John Watson had washed the Mark with lavender soap. How he had held it in his hands, and tried to heal it, and tasted his ugly lips.

Instead he said back, “I understand,” like a bullet straight through his own heart, and Dumbledore nodded, as if that had been the only thing he was waiting to hear.

“You will report to me in two days,” he said. “I want everything.”

Severus barely stopped himself in time from responding, “Yes, my Lord.”

And as Severus turned to leave, to make his way back alone through the storming woods, he thought he heard a voice behind him carried on the wind: “Good luck, my boy.”

 

\--

 

1991

After the Dark Lord had fallen, and the Mark on his left forearm faded to grey, and the Wizengamot decided he shouldn’t be condemned to suffer in Azkaban for life. After he bought teaching robes, and knew every corner of his Potions classroom better than he knew his own hand – after years of _same_ , of flat existence, Severus watched Harry Potter walk into the Great Hall for the very first time.

He saw a young boy, too small for his age, with the weight of the world sagging on his shoulders.

With bruised wrists.

And Severus sucked in a breath so sharply he feared half the Hall heard it over the sound of the Feast.

Dumbledore was beside him, stroking his beard. “Yes, they are quite similar in some regards,” he said quietly, even though Severus had said nothing, and then Dumbledore whispered over the sound of the Sorting Hat, “The Dark Lord may be gone, but this boy will still need our protection. He will need your eyes.”

Severus gripped his fork so hard in his palm the prongs drew blood from his thin, pale skin. 

He didn’t want to think about Harry Potter, being starved and living in a cupboard under the stairs, not knowing any love. He wanted to throw himself on a broom and fly halfway across the world, to where John Watson was still being shot at, and still saving soldiers beneath his hands.

He wanted John to hold him, he wanted to _rest_ , as he told John of the nights he used to come back to his quarters alone after the Dark Lord’s meetings, and after relaying everything to Albus and the Order, and how he would collapse onto his bed without even washing his face, because he couldn’t breathe.

And how on those nights, how he ached for him, and knew that that was exactly why he had to stay so far away.

But John Watson was a hero now, saving lives with his bare hands, with a wand locked away in a trunk gathering dust. And John wouldn’t want to hear of an aging Death Eater sleeping alone beneath the school he once hated. And he wouldn’t want to hear about how difficult it was to do the right thing, after years of being filth. He wouldn’t care to know that the Dark Mark was only light grey now – nearly clear on the skin of his arm.

But maybe, just maybe, one day John Watson would want to hear of an ex-Death Eater, of a Hogwarts Professor, who kept his distance to keep a soldier named John alive, free from magically stray bullets. And maybe John would want to hear one day about how that man protected a young boy, who had a target painted across his back, and a scar etched into his forehead, who reminded the ex-Death Eater of another young boy he once knew. Another young boy he had once failed and abandoned, leaving him only a Potion’s textbook for help.

Maybe John Watson would want to hear more about that man, one day.

 

\--

 

2005

“Fantastic,” John says, and Sherlock grasps his gloved hands behind his back, stretches his neck, and tries not to preen.

“Fairly obvious,” he says back, and he tries not to smile when he hears John’s laugh.

The waiting police swarm in around them, processing the scene as Sherlock shouts out directives. The earth is humming, his vision is clear, and Sherlock feels that he could lift one finger and direct the entire world into perfect order – into a beautiful machine, where only he knew how its working parts all fit together, and only he could see the connections, see the _logic_. And he notices, through the thrill of the case humming through his veins, that John is watching him, eyes pouring over every inch of Sherlock’s skin, and he’s licking his lips.

“John?”

“Christ, watching you do that . . .” John shifts back and forth on his sturdy feet, fingertips slipping into his pocket with his wand. “You know the way it . . . what it does –”

And Sherlock is being yanked down the hallway of the abandoned apartment building, pulled past lines of confused officers of the Met until he’s shoved into a stairwell, and John’s whispering a spell into his ear, covering Sherlock’s skin in warm water, in fluttering rose petals.

“Disillusionment charm,” John whispers against his neck.

Sherlock groans softly as John rubs his body against him, as his back is pressed harshly into the cold stairwell wall behind him.

“What does it do?” Sherlock asks breathlessly.

John licks his throat. “Makes it so they can’t see me do this,” he whispers, and then he flicks open Sherlock’s trousers without even looking down at his hand, shoves his fingers into Sherlock’s mouth between his lips to get them wet, and slides his hand down Sherlock’s pants to grasp his full erection in one long, wet stroke. 

Sherlock gasps and lets his head fall back harshly on the wall, lungs shaking. “John –”

“Christ, what you do to me,” John whispers into his ear. He thumbs over the slit of Sherlock’s cock, pushing his hips into his body. “Watching you do that, taking control of that whole fucking room, how you just walk in and _know_ \--”

Sherlock leans down and captures John’s mouth in a kiss, pumping his hips into John’s hand and gripping his hair. “Let me taste you,” he pants into his mouth. “Please, John, let me –”

“Fucking hell,” John breathes, and Sherlock grabs him by the shoulders and backs him into the wall behind him across the stairwell before sinking to his knees. His fingers tear at John’s belt and trousers, rucking them down over his hips to his knees, and then he takes John’s erect cock into his mouth in one go, pressing his nose to his groin with a moan.

John swears above him, and his fingers grip Sherlock’s hair, pushing the back of his head, still hesitant. And Sherlock pulls off from John’s erection and licks his lips and murmurs, “Yes,” before John shoves his cock back between his open lips.

“Your mouth,” John moans, and Sherlock keens at the feeling of being so taken over, at being so controlled, and John’s fingers are clutching his curls so hard it sends electric tingles across his scalp, and his own cock is aching, rubbing up against his own trousers as John fucks his mouth until he comes in his own pants, and John lets out a breathless cry as he comes down Sherlock’s throat ten minutes later.

John’s fingers stroke gently across his cheek, and Sherlock rests his face against John’s bare thigh. John’s skin smells like soap, like the air in their bedroom, and Sherlock presses his lips to John’s thigh in a wet kiss.

“Come here, you,” John whispers.

Sherlock rises to his feet, knees rough and bruised, and he melts when John grabs the back of his neck and pulls him into a searing wet kiss, gentle and slow. “Sherlock,” he breathes into his mouth. John’s magic is still warm water and flower petals over his skin, and Sherlock groans out loud when John waves his hand – just his bare hand – and both of their trousers zip closed, cocks tucked away.

John holds him in the stairwell, fingers carding through his curls, and Sherlock thinks that it might be nice to live in that dingy stairwell forever, to never leave, and to never lift the Disillusionment charm from his skin so no one can ever see him – no one can ever walk in and take this from him, what he has with John Watson, this life that has saved him.

But the new object hanging around his neck beneath his shirt, the tiny bit of gold, it presses against John’s chest as Sherlock leans against him, and John feels it.

“What’s this?” John asks, fingers already unbuttoning the top of Sherlock’s shirt to pull it out, and Sherlock feels that the entire world is crumbling around him, because he wasn’t ready, he wasn’t _ready_ , and he’d wanted a few more precious weeks of believing that he could walk by John’s side for all time, for all eternity, and he’d wanted just a few more precious weeks of knowing Severus Snape was still dead, buried in the ground, without John Watson trying to save him, and without John Watson looking at Severus with his magic and his power and his strength, and looking over at Sherlock Holmes, who was only ever good at solving crimes, with track marks on his arms, and choosing to be with Severus Snape – to make magic with him together, to leave Sherlock Holmes behind with his violin, and his cold tea.

Sherlock can’t find the breath in his lungs to answer. He freezes as John’s calloused, tan palms pull the Time Turner out from under his crisp white shirt, where he’d been keeping it safe, and he feels the warm water and flower petals vanish from his skin when John sees what’s in his hand.

The Time Turner glints in John’s palm like a tiny fire, and Sherlock is furious that something so small is about to destroy his entire life – rip his heart out from the cavity in his chest and crush it.

“Sher – what is this?” John breathes.

Sherlock swallows hard. “You know what it is.”

John’s hands are shaking, and the gold chain digs into the back of Sherlock’s neck so hard it might bleed.

“How did you –” John starts to say, but then he cuts himself off. “Of course, Hermione Granger.”

Sherlock nods, and hates himself when his eyes grow wet at the corners, utterly humiliating, when he should be upstairs right now, directing all of Scotland Yard, making John smile and gasp, “ _fantastic_.”

“Why?” John asks, barely a whisper.

And Sherlock wants to tell him that it’s so John can get a full night’s sleep without crying out, “ _episkey_ ” and clutching his wand, and so when John wakes up in the morning there will be another wizard warm at his side, and so John can have someone to go with him and hold his hand when he visits Diagon Alley, and so John can put the picture from his first day at Hogwarts out on the mantle, not hidden away, and so when John has sex he can feel someone else’s delicious magic cover his skin, and so John can be happy.

But his throat closes up, and he can’t say any of those things now, not here, so Sherlock blinks away the water in his eyes and says, “Because I’d do anything.”

Something in John’s face breaks, something Sherlock can’t bear to try and parse out, and just as John is opening his mouth to respond a shadow falls on them from the doorway.

“Christ, they’re just in here exchanging jewelry!” Lestrade calls back to his team, running a tired hand across his face. 

John drops the Time Turner back down Sherlock’s shirt as if he’d been burned. 

“You coming or not?” Lestrade yells down to them, and John calls back, “Yeah, hold on,” when Sherlock doesn’t even respond.

Sherlock tries to speak, “John –” but John is covering his mouth with his own, the faintest kiss. “Later,” John whispers, and he starts to jog back up the stairs, spine stiff and straight, and Sherlock presses a shaking hand to his own chest and forbids himself from trying to figure out if that kiss had been some sort of goodbye.

 

\--

 

1994

Severus stared down at his arm in silent horror, not touching the skin. He watched, eyes wide and disbelieving and burning dry, as the skull and snake changed effortlessly from clear to grey to black. Thick, screaming, terrifying black.

He couldn’t watch it any longer, not when he could feel the magic prickling like poison through his blood, so he shoved down his sleeve, and stood up so quickly the world faded at the edges, and then he stood in the center of his chambers at Hogwarts, and wished that he could cease to exist. If the stone walls of the dungeons could crush him, suffocating him until he died. If he could ignore the summons he knew was now coming, and stay sitting calmly on his bed while the Death Eaters converged, and wait, just wait patiently, for one of them to come and murder him, open his arms to accept the green sparks that would hit him square in the chest.

But then Harry Potter – the infuriating, unbelievable Harry Potter who had bruises on his arms after battling his dragon in the Tri-Wizard Tournament – he would have one less pair of eyes watching his back, even eyes he despised. And John Watson wouldn’t want to hear about how the corpse of a hated teacher had been found in his chambers, pathetically dead, and how that teacher had left the Boy Who Lived to possibly die.

So Severus started to pace, because if he paced then the urge to simply evaporate grew less and less, and he went over Potions recipes in his head, recited the list of every student from the last eight years, anything to keep himself from spelling the dungeon walls to crash down upon his head.

And as he paced, he turned around at one end of his dark, bleak chambers, and he came face to face with a glowing brown bear. 

Severus sank to his knees, thin bone hitting the cold stone.

The bear opened its mouth. “I’m at the edge of the forest,” it said, and Severus gasped aloud at the voice, the voice of his dreams, the voice he wanted to caress, to taste in his own mouth. Severus dropped his face in his hands, spine shaking, because this was all just some trick. It had to be. And the Dark Lord himself was probably somehow waiting for him at the edge of the forest, and it was so cruel, so sickeningly unfair that his chance to cease existing had finally come, and for the first time in nearly fifteen years Severus didn’t actually want to reach out and take it.

“And in case you think this is a trick,” the bear said, breaking through his tortured thoughts, and Severus felt cool magic brush against his face as the bear nuzzled his cheek – just wisps of smoke. “The first word I ever said to you was ‘eight.’”

And the bear rested its head against Severus’ heaving chest, and nuzzled ghostlike into his robes, and then it was gone, bounding away through the thick dungeon walls, leaving behind a buzzing warmth.

Severus gasped for breath. It could all still be a trick – that much was obvious. John could be captured, could have spoken under veritaserum to the leftover Death Eaters, could be already dead, and the person at the edge of the forest could have taken Polyjuice potion, could be a man with white slits for eyes.

But the man at the edge of the forest could also be John Watson, who was still breathing and alive, and who’d found him again, and Severus couldn’t die yet, couldn’t sleep or eat or dream until he _knew_.

His heart raced as he slipped through the shadows of the castle, black robes wrapped tightly around his thin form, wand in hand. He glided silently across the stone, through the snowy grasses, and over the grounds. And when the edge of the Forbidden Forest finally came into view, and Severus could barely hear over the wheezing of his own breath in his aching lungs, a small light glowed from out of the black mire of trees, and a man stepped forward, dressed in a faded jumper and old jeans. And even though Severus hadn’t seen him in fifteen long years, he recognized every curve, every bone, every wisp of hair of the man emerging from the darkness.

Severus’ wand hand shook. He pointed it straight at the figure emerging from the fog. “Please –” he called out, not even knowing why, and the figure held up something slowly in his hand before tossing it to Severus across the icy grass.

He caught it, and he gazed down at the tiny bottle in his hand, wand still raised and trembling. He uncorked it and sniffed, held it up to the light from the moon. And it could still be a trick, it could all be just a trick, but the potion looked and smelled so much like veritaserum that Severus wanted to believe, he wanted so badly to believe. He threw the bottle back to the figure, who caught it easily with one hand. And the figure flipped off the cork, and threw back his head, and poured the liquid into his mouth.

He grimaced as he swallowed, and Severus took a step closer under the stars.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The figure stood tall. “I am John Watson.”

Severus’ wand arm was aching, screaming at him, and his left forearm burned. “What was written in the last thing that I gave you?”

Because the page had been spelled to hide the message, his message to John, and this would tell him everything . . .

The wind moaned. The figure took a step closer. “It was your Potion’s textbook. It said ‘Property of the Half-Blood Prince’.”

Severus heart sank, and the terror in his veins screamed, and he knew that this was it, that he was about to die.

The figure stepped closer. “But if John Watson placed his hand over the first page, it said, ‘to troll, love hag’.”

And it could all still be a trick, the most terribly cruel trick, but Severus didn’t want to live another second anyway if the figure before him wasn’t John Watson, so he dropped his wand arm, and his fingers shook, and John Watson breathed out a sigh and rushed towards him in the grass.

“Severus,” he said, and Severus couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe, as John reached out and took his left arm in his warm hands. John pushed up his sleeve, and the Dark Mark swirled like black ink on his skin.

Severus’ gut roiled. “It isn’t like that,” he barely whispered, his voice suddenly wet. “Not anymore –”

“I know,” John said, and he brought the back of Severus’ left hand up to kiss it – to press it to his lips, which were tan and chapped, and to hold it in his own hands, which had callouses from holding a gun, and his hair was still gold, and he had a tan lines around his wrists, and he smelled of cardamom and sand, and his fingernails were scrubbed clean, and he was so strong, so sturdy, and Severus felt like a puddle of slimy black mud, slipping through John’s warm fingers, being burned once again by the sun.

And Severus was falling back into a field of soft lavender, cradled by velvet, where nothing dark had ever existed and the only sensation in the entire world was John’s warm, wet breath on the back of his hand.

And then he remembered, in one sickening, terrifying flash, why he had stayed away from the sun for so long, living in shadows. He yanked his hand away, stumbling backwards in the muddy snow. “You shouldn’t be here,” he choked out. “John, you can’t be here. If they see you, if they see you with me –”

“I’m being shipped out again tomorrow. My fourth tour,” John interrupted him.

Severus wanted to scream. “You can’t be seen with me. If they see you, then they’ll _know_ , and a stray bullet –”

“And I don’t know what came over me, but I sought out a Wizarding pub for the first time in years, and there was a copy of the Prophet, and I saw that . . . that the Mark had reappeared.”

Severus froze, and the icy wind whipped his greasy hair against his thin cheeks. “Yes . . .”

John’s lips shook. “Don’t make me leave, Sev. I had to come see you. . . I had to see –”

And Severus heard himself whisper, “Stay with me. Stay, please don’t go.” He reached out for John’s hand, and John took it, grip solid and firm. Severus felt wild, like a madman, pouring out words that would get them both killed, and yet he still said again, “Please, John, stay with me. Don’t leave me tonight.”

And John rushed forward into him, and wrapped strong arms around Severus’ sickly frame, and held him close. And Severus wasn’t burned.

“I’ll stay with you,” John whispered into the side of his neck, and Severus pressed his cheek into his hair, wanting to fly.

“Come with me,” Severus said, and John took his hand and followed with such trust, trust Severus hadn’t seen directed at him since he was sixteen years old, and it hurt him and healed him somewhere deep inside, somewhere which before had turned sharp and black.

He led John back into the castle, creeping through shadows like they had done when they were just teens. He led him down to the dungeons, which seemed so wrong it made Severus’ legs want to turn and dash up the stairs, bring John Watson to the highest tower, closest to the sun. But they went down, down, down and John’s grip on his clammy hand never once faltered.

Severus brought him to his chambers, closed the heavy door behind him, and then John Watson backed him up into the cold, stone wall and kissed him.

Severus moaned, an embarrassing, humiliating sound – a pathetic gasp, as John pressed his firm hips against Severus’ thighs, and wound strong fingers through his black hair, and licked inside Severus’ ugly mouth, through thin lips, and it was all so horrible, so gut-wrenching, that the sun itself was kissing Severus Snape, with a Dark Mark on his forearm, in a dripping old dungeon, that Severus pulled back with bruised, wet lips.

“John, you shouldn’t . . . you don’t have to—”

“Do you want this?” John asked, his breath fanning across Severus’ cold cheek. And Severus knew he should have lied, should have said anything and everything to keep himself from ruining John Watson, and John was brushing his hair back from his face, and cradling his neck. “Do you still want this, Sev?” John asked again, and Severus heard himself whisper, “Always.”

John kissed him, holding Severus’ face in his hands and gasping into his mouth, rolling his body against his thin bones, and Severus gripped the back of John’s shoulder blades, his lower back and hips with his cold, thin hands. Fire rolled up his spine in gentle pulses, settling between his shaking legs. John licked up his neck, tasting his too-pale skin, breathing heat over the wet paths from his tongue – his swollen lips. Severus gripped the back of John’s head, wove his fingers through his hair, and finally, _finally_ , after more than fifteen years, allowed his aching erection to press itself once more into John Watson’s belly.

And John pushed back.

“Fuck, Sev,” he breathed. Severus could feel John’s warm cock pressed thickly into the dip of his own thigh, into his groin, and John moaned in the back of his throat, and Severus looked down and saw his cock straining obscenely through the layers of his black robes, straining the buttons, and John lowered one of his warm palms to rub against it, grasping hot skin through the fabric.

Severus gasped, and reached up under John’s jumper until his shaking hand found firm, warm skin. He traced up John’s spine, feeling his muscles pull and ripple under his palm as John ground himself against Severus’ body – as if he wanted to, as if he actually enjoyed the feeling of his thin bones, his cold skin –

John kissed him again, moaning against his mouth, and then he leaned back and ripped his jumper over his head, tossing it to the ground. And Severus whimpered, a wretched sound escaping from his gasping lungs, at the sight of John Watson standing shirtless in his chambers, warm and lean, with freckles draped across his collarbones, and pearled nipples, and Severus couldn’t bring himself to touch any of it. He just stared.

John reached for his hands, grasping them firmly, and he held Severus’ gaze as he placed them on his own bare chest and held them there. 

“Please,” John whispered. His voice was low and hoarse. “Please, Sev –”

Severus kissed him, running his hands down the heaving muscles of John’s chest, tracing fingers over his nipples, hearing John’s breath hitch, and he wanted to press his lips to every freckle, and trace every line of John’s body with his own tongue, and taste his navel, and each line of his ribs, and feel the heavy weight of him on top of his own bones, and John’s skin under his palms was so warm, and so soft, like sun-kissed silk, and John could pin him to the ground if he wanted to, or carry him in his arms, and the thought made Severus start to stain the front of his robes with wetness leaking from his cock, straining the black fabric –

John’s fingers were by his neck, slowly undoing the first button of his robes, and Severus froze.

John looked into his eyes, waiting, fingers still poised by his neck, and Severus was panting. “I’m not . . . it isn’t nice. There are scars –”

John didn’t respond, and leaned forward and kissed the base of his throat, licking the skin warm with his tongue. He undid another button, and another.

“I’m . . . my stomach,” Severus gasped. “You won’t want to see –”

Because John’s fingers were undoing his robes, button by button, and he was kissing each new bit of revealed skin, kissing over old scars, and showing bones, and grey skin, and John’s flat, toned stomach was pressing against the new softness around Severus’ middle – the small belly that was there after years of sitting in classrooms, and it felt so wrong, so horrifically _wrong_ , that maybe this was even worse than simply ceasing to exist, than being struck down by a crowd of men in white masks, than staying in shadows.

John pushed the heavy robes from Severus’ shoulders, letting the fabric pool on the floor, and his bared skin shivered in the room. John ran his hands up his body, from his hips to his chest, trailing over every bone, every muscle, every curve. And he kissed him, so sweet and soft Severus nearly wanted to weep, and then John dropped to his knees.

He pressed his cheek to Severus’ aching erection through his thin pants, breathing hot air through the cotton, and Severus gripped the cold, stone wall behind him with his fingers. 

“John, I’ve never –” he started to say, but he couldn’t breathe. John looked up at him with heavy eyes, glowing in the darkness. His lips were wet. 

“Let me,” he whispered, and when Severus nodded, breathless and trembling, John reached up and pulled down his pants until they fell to the floor. He moaned in the back of his throat, a deep growl, and his eyes traced Severus’ cock, jutting out into the room, deep red and hard, dripping wet.

And John placed his hands on Severus’ bony hips, and traced his fingertips through his black pubic hair, and leaned forward and kissed the tip of Severus’ penis.

Severus cried out, thighs shaking. John kissed it again, tracing his tongue along the aching skin, and sucking with his lips. And Severus wanted to pull back, wanted to push him away, because John Watson shouldn’t have to be the first person to taste between Severus Snape’s legs. Then John swallowed him down into warm heat, pressing his nose into the hair around Severus’ cock and breathing in, _moaning_ , and Severus decided to let it all go.

He let John Watson suck him off, with his fingers gripping John’s hair, and John’s hands on the back of his thighs, kneading his arse. He let his chambers be filled with the sounds of John Watson’s lips on his cock, with obscenely wet moans, and he let himself pump and push between full, wet lips, looking down his thin body at the sun itself kneeling between his legs, moaning in pleasure as his mouth was fucked.

And Severus let John Watson stand up and lead him to his own bed, which had never looked so big and soft, and kiss him with lips that tasted of his own erection. He let John press him down into the sheets, and crawl on top of him, weighing him down with his warm body, pressing skin to skin.

John settled on his chest, shivering when Severus rubbed his hands up his warm spine. Their erections pressed together, warm and firm, and John ran his fingertips through Severus’ hair.

“I’ve always loved your hair,” John finally said softly.

Severus felt lighter than air. “That just proves you have horrible taste,” he said.

John laughed, filling the room with his voice, and Severus smiled, drowning in the knowledge that all of this could feel so good, so right. That during his first time, after over thirty years of surviving on this earth, he could make the other person laugh. Make John Watson laugh, naked in his bed.

John frowned. “Why did you never cut it? If you think it’s so awful?” he asked.

Severus felt boldness wash through him, and he leaned up to kiss the question still on John’s lips. “You told me once, when we were little, that you liked it,” he said.

And he let John Watson start to roll his hips on top of him, on sweat-slicked skin, and groan into his ear. He let John reach for his wand, and whisper Latin Severus had never before heard, and the air around them crackled with warmth, and his skin sang. 

He let John reach for his pulsing cock, swollen and hard in his palm, and bring it up to John’s hole, suddenly open and wet.

Severus gasped. “How --?” But John was sitting up on top of him, and throwing his head back as he sank down onto Severus’ cock, gripping his chest.

The world stopped, because Severus was _inside_ John, feeling the beat of his blood in his veins, and he let John ride him, pumping himself full of Severus’ body again and again while Severus tried to breathe, while he reached for John’s stomach and chest, while he chanted John’s name, the most powerful spell.

He let himself touch John’s cock for the first time, so heavy and perfect in his hand. He heard John whisper, “Yes,” as Severus tried to stroke him in time to John’s hips rising and falling on top of his body, squeezing his cock, and he tried to survive it all, tried not to fly up into the sky, when John looked down at him with wet eyes and gasped out his name, and when John came, mouth falling open and his semen streaking across Severus’ thin chest. 

And he let himself lose control. He let himself come into John Watson’s body, as John’s palms held his face in his hands.

Later, hours later, after they’d lain skin to skin in warm silence, Severus pulled John on top of him, and kissed the shell of his ear, and let John enter him, too. And he laid on his back, and John peppered his lips and face with his kisses, and they fucked so slowly Severus thought dawn would come before they were through, before John was done panting into his ear, and groaning his name, and covering every part of Severus’ skin with his hands, holding him gently as if he might break.

John spelled them both clean between their legs when they finished, but he left their skin slick with sweat. He fell beside Severus onto the pillows, chest still heaving, and when he looked over at him he smiled, like he did in Ollivander’s, except this time the corners of his eyes were sad.

Severus looked at him. “You’re going to be gone before I wake up, aren’t you?” he asked.

John’s lips trembled. “Yes,” he whispered.

A knife pierced through Severus’ chest, and for the first time since he met Albus Dumbledore on a hillside, he felt tears brim over his eyes. Before he could say anything, John reached for him, pulling him into his chest, caressing his hair. Severus clung to him, and he felt John’s chest shake beneath him, and he wept.

John Watson held him. “You’ve been so brave,” he whispered. “Severus, you’ve been so brave. My brave man.”

John held him, rubbing his back, and didn’t flinch when Severus’ tears dripped onto his skin. He lifted Severus’ left arm, and pressed the Mark to his lips and kissed it, and he held him, skin to skin.

“You’ve been so brave,” he said again, just as sleep started to pull Severus under.

“I don’t want to fall asleep,” he whispered into John’s chest, voice frantic, and John kissed his forehead.

“You’ve been so brave.”

-

In the morning, when Severus woke up just after dawn, he was clutching a jumper in his hands. The bedsheets were cool beside him, and the only sound in the room was his own breathing.

He sat up, gasping, and looked down at his own skin, bare and sore. He looked at the soft purple bruises on his hips from John’s hands.

“John?” he called out softly, even though he knew in his bones he was gone. And when there was no answer, and his voice echoed off the empty stone walls, he fell back into his bed with an ache in his throat.

And his bedsheets smelled like cardamom and sand. 

 

\--

 

1998

John looked up into the clear Afghanistan sky where he rested in the shade of a little palm, medical bag ready by his side just in case, uniform baking in the sun. He reached into his pocket, fiddling with the bottle that had once held veritaserum on a moonlit night.

And he saw an owl.

It flew straight towards him, nearly tumbling out of the sky, and John rushed to it without even thinking, stretching out his arm for it to land. The little bird was panting, folding its wings and nearly falling from its perch on John’s arm. John looked up frantically, desperately hoping that no one else in his unit just saw their medic catch an owl out of the sky. When he found no one looking, John grabbed his bag and rushed back towards his surgery tent, cradling the bird against his chest.

And when he was inside the tent, with the flaps securely tied shut behind him, he reached deep down into his uniform boot and pulled out his wand, casting a cooling charm over the owl and conjuring water for it to drink. And only after the little bird was comfortable, and cool, and resting as it perched on the edge of the little card table that made up John’s desk, he reached towards its foot, and untied the roll of parchment he found there, and unrolled it with shaking hands.

“ _I thought it best that you knew,_ ” the handwritten note said, in what looked like a young woman’s handwriting. “ _It’s too dangerous to send you more details, but I thought you should know. I’m sorry._ ”

And John looked behind the little note to see a torn out article from the Daily Prophet, listing the names of all who had died in a Battle of Hogwarts that John hadn’t even known had occurred. 

And his vision started going grey at the edges, breath wheezing in his chest, as his eyes stared unseeingly at the little slip of ink-stained paper. Names – familiar and not – flitted through his consciousness, through the chaos in his ears. And John thought he was actually being shot, with a bullet literally piercing his chest, when he finally got to the last name on the list, in tiny ink. Because no pain on earth, no other pain in the world could possibly describe how John felt when his eyes got to the end of the printed list and read the name “Severus Snape.”

-

Two years later, after John actually had been shot with a bullet in the chest from a gun in the hand of a muggle; after he had refused to heal himself. And after he’d spent nearly a year almost dying, and been shipped back to rainy England, and given a little bedsit to spend his days in staring at the walls.

After he hadn’t touched his wand since a hot day in the desert when an owl landed on his arm.

A young man knocked on his door, in the middle of the afternoon, and he said that his name was Harry Potter.

And John recognized the name, of course he recognized the name, so he let him in, hot shame creeping up his neck when he realized he had nowhere for Harry Potter to even sit – the savior of the Wizarding World. And he looked so young.

Harry Potter didn’t even blink an eye when John didn’t offer a chair. He stood calmly in the center of the tiny room, looking at John with a refreshing lack of pity.

“I’m sure you know who I am,” he said, and somehow didn’t sound conceited when he said it. John nodded, leaning hard on the cane in his hand – the cane he still needed even though it had been over a year since his leg hadn’t even been shot.

Harry put his hands in his pockets. “Did Hermione’s owl ever reach you?” he asked. “Back in Afghanistan?”

John’s throat closed up, and in his mind he saw long black hair on a cold floor, covered in blood. “It did,” he said.

Harry nodded. “And you knew he was on our side? That he was our spy – even after Dumbledore?”

And that use of one tiny word, “ _was_ ,” still ripped John’s breath clear out of his lungs.

John nodded, couldn’t even speak, and the air fell stale between them. Finally Harry flinched, as if emerging from his thoughts, and reached into the bag slung over his shoulder. “I’m so sorry it’s taken me this long to come see you,” he said down at his hands. “I – well for a while there we didn’t know where you were, after you were injured. And when you got back to England, I – well, actually I was rather nervous. To come and find you.”

“Why do you want to find me?” John suddenly asked, and he clenched his jaw when he realized how rude that sounded. He felt he should be thanking Harry Potter, shaking his hand or getting on one knee, but he had a feeling Harry Potter was infinitely glad that John was just standing there, being slightly rude.

Harry held out his hand, holding a cloth pouch, and John reached out with the hand not on his cane and took it.

Harry cleared his throat. “I needed to come find you to give you these,” he said. “They’re memories. And I’ve brought you a pensieve if you don’t have one, if you wanted to view them.”

Harry paused, and John waited, fingers shaking over the little glass vials he could feel through the cloth.

“Professor --,” Harry caught himself. “Severus Snape gave those to me as he was . . as he was dying. I was there, right before, and then when he --- And . . I think I sort of knew he wanted you to have them. Eventually.”

“I’m in the memories?” John breathed.

Harry nodded. “Nearly them all.”

And John wanted to smash the little glass vials to the ground, and throw his cane, and run towards Harry Potter and scream in his face why he didn’t _save_ him, if he was there. Why he didn’t do everything in his power, why he let Severus use the last seconds of his life using strength to pull out memories instead of saving his life, stopping the bleeding from his throat, letting him _live_.

But one look at Harry Potter told John that Harry already knew exactly what he was going to say, and John could see the guilt wearing down his shoulders. And this young boy had killed Voldemort.

So John looked down at the cloth sack with unseeing eyes. His voice was achingly wet. “I would need to borrow your pensieve, yes,” he said quietly. 

He heard Harry drop the bag over his shoulder to the ground. “You can keep it,” he said, and when John didn’t answer, couldn’t possibly answer, he heard Harry start to move towards the door.

Just as the door was creaking open on its hinges John looked up from his hand. “Harry,” he called out. Harry turned back. “Thank you,” John whispered. And he knew that Harry Potter knew he wasn’t thanking him at all for killing Lord Voldemort. He was thanking him for stopping in the middle of a war to gather up the memories of a dying man. And he was thanking him for tracking down an old soldier, an ex-wizard, to place them in his shaking hand.

And for being there so Severus hadn’t been alone.

-

John watched each memory only once, nearly two weeks after Harry Potter left. He didn’t leave his flat the entire time, just sat staring at the little glass vials in his hand.

And after he watched them, he stood up straight, and he got dressed for the first time in days. And he took his rucksack with the pensieve and the little glass vials and went back to Diagon Alley for the first time in what felt like hundreds and hundreds of years.

He went into Gringotts, and clutched his wand in his hand like a long-lost friend, and he left the pensieve and little vials in a dark vault, with a spell to keep them warm.

And on his way back home, as he was making his way through Regent’s Park with his wand in his pocket, he heard someone calling his name from just behind him, trying to say hello.

And he turned around and saw Mike Stamford, walking his way with a smile.

 

\--

 

1997

When Severus found Harry Potter camping in the Forest of Dean he nearly sank to his knees in relief.

He was starving and cold, back aching, and the Sword of Gryffindor felt too heavy in his hands. And the forest felt like claws at his robes, and the wind moaned in his ear, and he felt the time ticking away in his chest until the end, until it could all just be _over_ – the clock that had started the moment he’d had to point his wand between Albus Dumbledore’s eyes on the Astronomy Tower.

He hid between trees, cloaked in black shadows, as he watched Harry Potter make his way away from the tent. And when Harry was just within reach, peering around him for danger, Severus closed his eyes and thought of falling asleep in the arms of John Watson. And a glowing black bear burst from the tip of his wand on silent paws. And he whispered into its ear to guide Harry Potter to the Sword of Gryffindor at the bottom of the frozen pool.

And after Harry had been pulled from the icy waters by Ron Weasley, with the Sword clasped safely in his hand, Severus turned away from the sight of the two young friends comforting each other by the banks of the pool. And he retreated far back into the trees, back towards his own tent, set up in the shadows. And he sat on his cot, and felt tears on his cheeks, and wanted to fly halfway across the world to a muggle army in Afghanistan.

He didn’t sleep at all, and reminded himself until dawn all the reasons why he had to stay away. And the thought that finally did it was picturing a stray bullet piercing John Watson’s warm chest, fired from the end of a Death Eater’s black wand, causing his blood to seep into the warm sand.

“I miss you,” he whispered out loud, hanging his head in his hands. 

Nobody answered him, and Severus wished the clock in his chest would hurry up so that it could all just be over. So that he could finally rest. And as daylight broke over the tops of the misty trees, Severus conjured his Patronus, and laid down by its side, and pretended that the fur was brown instead of black so that he could sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much for reading. Like I stated at the beginning, I'm well aware that this story presents different or inaccurate magic, as well as shifts timelines a bit, so please keep that in mind! I truly, deeply appreciate the kind feedback and encouragement that I've been given. 
> 
> Part 4 should be up fairly soon, since I have it all plotted out. And then I'll be switching back to Priest!lock, since I miss that universe as much as some of you do :) Thanks for your patience!


	4. Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied . . . this fic will be 5 chapters, not 4! 
> 
> Heads up: this chapter contains some of that 'canon-typical violence' warned about in the tags. Also, there is a very brief moment of underage sexual contact. Brief as in literally one paragraph. If you want to skip it, it's the "sickness" memory. You'll be able to see it coming.
> 
> Enjoy!

2005

“Swear to God, if you’re deducing where we’re going right now –”

“Honestly, John. I’m not deducing where we’re going.”

“You have your fingers steepled in front of your mouth, and you’re muttering things with your eyes going all shifty,” John says laughing. “What else could you possibly be doing?”

Sherlock immediately drops his hands into his lap, gazing out the window as they speed down the empty rural motorway in John’s rented car. “I didn’t say I wasn’t deducing _anything_ , just not where we’re going. . .” he says, slumping down in the seat.

John laughs again, high and tinkling and a sound that Sherlock has longed for, like a missing limb, since they first walked into that suspect’s flat and John whispered, “ _Merlin,_ ” in a terrified voice behind him.

He feels John’s hand on his knee, soft and warm, and Sherlock fights the urge to pick it up and press it to the center of his chest, to his cheek and his face and his lips, so he can memorize every single contour of John’s hand for when he’s gone. . .for when he chooses . . .

“I’ll give you credit for being remarkably more patient that I expected you to be,” John says, keeping his eyes on the open road. “We’re almost there. Then you’ll have all your answers.”

So Sherlock sits quietly, and doesn’t try to figure out where they’re going and why, and ten minutes later John drives them down a narrow dirt track towards a field, hidden in a rolling burst of green hills and fresh valleys, and John breathes in the air when they get out of the car like he’d been missing that specific air in his lungs for years. For decades.

The dull ache in Sherlock’s chest, the thud that had been building, haunting, thrumming since John found a Time Turner hidden beneath his shirt nearly a month ago, and whispered, “ _later_ ” in a dingy stairwell, and then never said anything about it again – that ache starts to hum like fresh mud in his gut, a booming drum echoing across the green valleys and turning them to dying smoke.

Sherlock crosses his arms, scrunching his nose against the fresh air. “Well?”

And for some reason his mind screams, his soul pleads with the universe for John not to leave him here in this valley, not to reach out and ask for the Time Turner and disappear and never come back, and John Watson would never even do such a thing – would never leave Sherlock Holmes alone in a field with a car he can barely even drive, to go home alone to fix his own tea, and yet . . . and yet . . .

John rolls his eyes, popping open the trunk. “Well,” he says, coming back around the car, and he places a long thin object in Sherlock’s hands, wrapped in brown paper, and when Sherlock wraps his palms around the wood he knows instantly what it is, adrenaline flowing through his veins, curiosity screaming at him, and John holds Sherlock from behind around the waist and whispers into his neck, “Do you want to fly?”

Sherlock gasps, clutching the broom harder in his hands, afraid it will somehow evaporate into smoke before he can see it. He hates himself as he asks, “But are you allowed . . . the Ministry –”

“Oh, fuck the Ministry,” John says. He takes the broom out of Sherlock’s hands when he stays frozen and rips off the paper in one go. “You’re a muggle with an illegal Time Turner around your neck, and I’m an ex-soldier who never even graduated from Hogwarts. What the hell are they even gonna do?”

Sherlock stumbles forward, trying to follow in John’s blazing path. “Never . . . never graduated --?”

John turns back to him, rubbing the back of his neck and slowing down, broom gripped in his palm. “Yeah, I – I left early for the army,” he says, and Sherlock knows immediately that’s not the entire story, but he zips his lips shut against the barrage of conclusions and questions. But then John stops in his tracks and looks out at the rolling hills and says, “Actually, that’s not really true. You can tell that’s not true.” He turns back to where Sherlock stands, heart stuttering in his chest.

“I left because . . . in my sixth year,” John takes a deep breath, “I saw him casting a curse – an Unforgivable Curse – on the front page of the paper. I was eating breakfast. And everyone was talking about exams and Quidditch and girls, and I needed . . . I needed to leave. The army came later, after I was back in London.”

Sherlock nods, a mixture of joy and nausea coursing through his veins. He takes another look around at the valley around them, remembers how John’s shoulders immediately relaxed once they’d gotten out of the car.

“He taught you how to fly here,” Sherlock says, because they can talk about Severus Snape now, as if the hidden Time Turner hanging around Sherlock’s neck whispers, “ _maybe he isn’t really dead, maybe he isn’t really dead,_ ” and that fact alone is enough for John to throw him into conversation so casually, always as “he.”

And Sherlock also asks about “he,” because he wants to know what happened in the first twenty years of John Watson’s life more than he ever even wanted cocaine, more than he wants to solve crimes, more than oxygen itself, and all of John’s memories before he was twenty years old seem to involve “he.”

John huffs out a laugh, lighting up his whole face. “God, no,” he says, continuing to walk out into the grass. “No, I taught _him_ how to fly here. Couldn’t even balance on a broom for two seconds before I helped him. He was miserable at it.”

The desire to know more is nearly painful in Sherlock’s fingertips. He stands back, brain in overdrive, as John stops in the middle of the grass and swings one leg casually over the broom, holding it gently in his hands.

“You were a seeker,” Sherlock says, because he needs to _know_ , he needs to know more, and he saw that printed somewhere in a book on the History of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with John Watson’s name printed next to it, and he doesn’t even know what it _means_ , and John could disappear into the sky on his broom, or fly away from him across the world, or fall through the air and die and Sherlock will never know what John Watson did on his high school sports team.

John’s face is so relaxed it nearly takes Sherlock’s breath away. “I was,” he says. “A hundred years ago, it feels like.”

A breeze blows across the whispering grasses, billowing Sherlock’s coat out behind him and ruffling through John’s hair.

“What does that mean?” Sherlock asks, hating that he even has to ask such a thing.

And John smirks. “It means I was very good at catching tiny, golden balls,” he says back, and then he winks, and before Sherlock’s disbelieving eyes John pushes up off the ground and soars into the air on a broom, flying towards the clouds.

Sherlock’s mouth falls open. He can’t move, can’t even _blink_ , as the wind races through John’s hair, and the broom underneath him creates spirals of whooshing wind, piercing the sky, and John’s movements are so controlled, so utterly powerful, and the _speed_ of it all, the hairpin twists and turns as he dances across the sky, racing the wind, and Sherlock suddenly realizes that he is the most selfish man on earth for ever wanting to keep something so beautiful all to himself – for wanting to keep John Watson tied to the ground, like an eagle in a cage, instead of letting him fly.

John zooms through one final flip and speeds headfirst towards the grass, letting out a whoop before pulling up at the last second and gently landing on his feet. His hair is wild, and his cheeks are flushed, and John looks happier than Sherlock’s ever seen him in his life – happier than after their first case.

“Christ, I missed that,” John breathes. And Sherlock doesn’t even have time to respond before John’s holding out his hand. “Come on, you.”

Sudden fear tingles down his spine, pooling in his lungs. “I’m not sure I –”

“You’re seriously gonna pass on a chance to fly on a magic broom? You? Sherlock Holmes?”

Sherlock huffs and rolls his eyes, even though he knows John can see right through him, and he gingerly takes off his coat, rolls up his shirtsleeves and fixes his hair, buying time so he doesn’t do something embarrassing like tell John that it makes him feel absolutely ignorant, incomparably _inept_ , that John can effortlessly do this thing that no amount of studying on earth could ever help Sherlock achieve. 

“Oh sure, take your time to make sure your hair looks good,” John laughs. “The wind won’t mess it up at all.”

Sherlock shoots him a look, pretending all of this is normal, and John scoots forward on the broom, patting the tiny bit of wooden stick behind him for Sherlock to climb on, giving him a smirk. 

Sherlock eyes the stick, so thin it looks like it could snap in two. He tries to look haughty to mask his fear. “And that will hold our combined body weights, I presume?”

He jumps when John reaches out and grabs him by the front of the shirt, dragging him on. “Quit whining and climb on,” he says. “You think I’d take you hundreds of feet up into the air on a broom that would break in two?”

So Sherlock holds his tongue, and climbs on behind John, and settles his weight awkwardly onto the wooden handle, shifting his cock in his trousers. John’s back is warm and slightly sweaty in front of him, and Sherlock wraps his arms around his waist, burying his face in the nape of his neck.

John pats his hand. “You ready?”

Sherlock nods, holding his breath.

“Now don’t fall off – my hovering charms have never been all that great,” John says, and before Sherlock can respond his feet magically leave the ground, dangling free in the air, and he cries out and nearly flips sideways back to the ground before John reaches out and catches him, laughing like he’s twenty years old, and Sherlock grips John’s waist so hard he fears his arms might give out and break off, and the wind is starting to rush against his face, through his teeth, and the rolling green hills zip by so fast it’s like the entire earth is just one blurry color.

And Sherlock is _flying_. Flying on the back of a broom with John Watson.

John laughs again in front of him, letting out a cry, and Sherlock can feel the wonderful vibrations through his chest, the power of John’s voice, and he grips John even tighter, letting his soft hair brush against his cheeks, and he breathes in lungfuls of the clear open sky, tasting the clouds, higher, and higher, and higher.

And as Sherlock Holmes does the most impossible thing on earth, the thing that no science in the world could ever even explain, he closes his eyes, and whispers into the back of John Watson’s neck, so softly it can’t be heard over the sound of the wind, “I don’t know how I’ll survive it if you leave me. I don’t know how I’ll live.”

-

When they touch down nearly an hour later Sherlock’s body feels frozen in place, gripping the broom. John doubles over and laughs when he falls awkwardly into the grass, broom still stuck between his thighs, and his curls a mess. 

“Aw, look at you,” John says, holding out a hand. “Come here, help you up.”

And John pulls Sherlock quickly to his feet with no effort at all, and he wraps him up into his arms and kisses him, panting into his mouth and shooting tingling warmth through Sherlock’s limbs.

“Thank you,” John whispers, holding his face in his hands.

Sherlock frowns. “You’re the one who just took me flying on a household cleaning object.”

John kisses him again. “I meant thank you . . . for everything.”

The words land like heavy bricks in Sherlock’s chest. His breath hitches. “You’ve decided you want to use the Time Turner,” he says, hoping his voice doesn’t shake.

John looks into his eyes, not letting him look away. “Yes.”

And for a moment Sherlock fears he’ll crumple in the grass, sobbing tears on John Watson’s legs. He thinks he’ll do something humiliating like beg him on his knees, or promise him the world, or steal the car and try to drive away as fast as he can with the Time Turner still around his neck, so John can’t use it.

“Ok,” he says, but it comes out just a whisper, a puff of wet air, and John’s face falls as Sherlock starts to unbutton the top of his shirt.

“Sherlock, wait. Hold on.”

He freezes with John’s hands covering his fingers. He can’t breathe.

“Sherlock, if you think you’re not coming with me, you’re the stupidest man I’ve ever known.”

And Sherlock thinks that his mind is a cruel, cruel place, because it’s making him hear things that John Watson never said, and it’s imagining John tucking the Time Turner back into his shirt, and holding his cheek.

And his mind thinks John is saying, “Sherlock, do you hear me? Love, I’m not going back there without you. I’m not leaving you behind. I want you to come with me.”

And the way John says that, “ _I want you to come with me,_ ” just like Sherlock said to him right before he asked him on their second ever case, it makes Sherlock’s blood sing, and the entire earth sighs, and he realizes he hasn’t been imagining at all. 

“Come with you . . .back in time?” he breathes, shaking.

John brings down his face to kiss his forehead. “Yes. Of course I want you to go with me, yes.” He pulls back. “If you want to go . . . ?”

But he can’t finish that question, because Sherlock is breathing out every last drop of air in his lungs in relief and kissing him. And John Watson might still choose Severus Snape after he saves his life, and he might stay with him and make beautiful magic, and leave Sherlock Holmes behind. . . 

But now Sherlock knows he will get to be there until the very last second. He will hold John’s hand until it’s ripped from his grasp, and he will fly behind him on every single broom, in every sky, and when John chooses Severus Snape, after his throat is no longer covered in blood, and looks at Sherlock with sorry, blue eyes, Sherlock knows he will be there to tell him, “I’d do anything, and I love you more than air. And you can go.”

 

\--

 

1998

It didn’t hurt when Nagini’s fangs sank into his neck and pierced his throat – not at first.

At first there was just relief, sweet relief like a breath of clean air in a fresh field, because the Dark Lord was gone, and he was no longer facing down two terrifying white slits for eyes, and the room no longer smelled serpentine and black, and Lucius Malfoy wasn’t there to watch his downfall, and there were no more screams.

It all felt like cool, cool water, like the air being released from icy lungs, now warmed, and Severus was surprised when his back hit the wall behind him, hard and rubbing splinters through his robes, and the snake was striking, again, and again, and again, and Severus wondered why he couldn’t feel the pain, only the wall.

His body slumped to the floor, completely out of his control, and the wood was rough under his thighs, pressing against his shoulder blades, and right as the snake slithered away silently on its belly through the foggy, black door, licking Severus’ blood from its fangs, the pain began.

It consumed him. Severus tried to scream, but all that came out was a gurgling moan, choked with blood, and he clapped a hand to his neck, blood gushing through his fingers, and every single bone in his body was on fire, and his lungs filled with nails, and he realized that the clock in his chest had only a handful of seconds left before it would stop ticking, and then he could rest.

But he couldn’t possibly rest if he was in this much pain, in this much utter agony.

And Severus was surprised to note, that out of everything, the pain and the blood and the splinters on the floor, more than the cold, cold air slipping out of his gasping lungs, he felt afraid. Afraid of the moment he’d known was coming for years. The moment that had started the day he looked down at his arm and saw the Dark Mark slowly returning. The moment that had started the day he first knelt and kissed the Dark Lord’s robes. 

And still, after nearly two decades of knowing this day would come, he still felt afraid.

And he wished the pain would just stop, the pain screaming through his body, and each breath felt like drinking down a gulp of hot fire, of pure flames, and his fingers could barely keep hold on his own neck because of the blood gushing down his cold skin.

And even though he’d been alone his entire life, he was selfish. And right now he didn’t want to be alone.

So he felt into his pocket for his wand, thinking that maybe, _maybe_ he could think of falling asleep in John Watson’s arms one last time before he lost consciousness, and maybe he could gather the last wisps of strength left in his body to cast his Patronus. And maybe the bear would curl up by his side, wisps of calm smoke, and he could nuzzle into its neck as he died, and pretend that the fur was brown.

But then he remembered he didn’t have a wand anymore to even try to cast his Patronus, and that realization was more painful than the snake bite that had just ripped out his neck.

And just as the floor beneath him was turning to soft clouds, to fields of black, just as his vision was starting to fade, and the clock in his chest was so faint, and Severus was begging for the relief, for the quiet, for the final moment of rest, he looked up and saw Harry Potter standing in the doorway. Harry Potter, alive and staring at him in the middle of a war, with his mouth hanging open.

And Severus knew he couldn’t die if Harry Potter didn’t _know_.

Harry rushed to him, the same way someone else had always rushed to Severus’ side, except this hair was silken brown instead of gold. Harry dropped to his knees beside him, and Severus felt his small hands pressing against his robes, holding on to his chest, and Harry Potter’s mouth was moving, saying things which Severus couldn’t even hear, and in his mind he heard, “ _eight_ ” and “ _that’s in three years,_ ” and “ _John_.”

And as he heard John’s voice, clear and warm in his own mind, as the blood slowed in his veins, and his heart screamed at him to let go, Severus allowed himself the luxury of remembering it all. He hadn’t thought of these memories in years, in decades, because the Dark Lord could see into his mind, and he had to keep it blank, so that a stray bullet wouldn’t find John Watson’s chest.

But now, he remembered, and Harry gasped as the memories poured out of Severus’ mouth, his ears and eyes. 

Harry Potter had to know it _all_ , the beautiful and the ugly and the private. The secret. Because if Harry Potter knew, maybe one day John Watson would want to know, too. One day.

“Take them,” Severus moaned, the words screaming in his chest, gurgling in his throat like fire.

He remembered.

He remembered John Watson sneaking into the Slytherin dorm after he heard Severus was ill, barely a month before Severus left. How John had brushed the damp hair back from his sweaty forehead, and placed his hands on Severus’ bare chest to heal him, and how John had pulled back the covers and climbed into his bed, even though they’d barely even spoken in months. How John had held him through the night, brushing his lips against Severus’ cheek, and whispered, “It’s alright, you’re alright.” And how they’d both grown hard, too close and too warm beneath the blankets, and how Severus had been so feverish he’d thought he was dreaming when John slipped his hand beneath his pajama bottoms and stroked Severus’ bare cock with his fingers, with his warm palm, holding the thrumming skin and caressing it with the heel of his hand, and John’s breath had been hot and humid on the back of his neck, and his tiny moans tickled Severus’ ear, whispered and muffled so that they wouldn’t be heard. And then John had pulled his hand away, after just a few gasping moments, and wrapped his arms so tightly around Severus’ wheezing chest he could barely breathe. 

And Severus thought, as he was dying with Harry Potter catching his memories, of how John’s chest had trembled behind him in his dormitory bed in the dark. How John had whispered, “You’re going to leave, aren’t you?” And when Severus hadn’t responded, John had kissed the back of his neck, the barest brush of hot lips, and said, “Do you remember when those men back home came after us that one summer? When they called me a queer? I think I am.” And Severus had waited until John Watson was fast asleep, snoring against his neck in his Slytherin dorm before he’d answered back, “I think I am too.” And Severus remembered that what he’d really meant to say had been, “ _I think that I love you._ ”

He thought of being held upside down over the grass with the breeze against his bare thighs.

He thought of meeting Albus Dumbledore on a hillside, face twisted with disgust.

He thought of John Watson balancing on the train tracks in the middle of the dirt.

And he thought of Harry Potter entering the Great Hall for the very first time.

And when the last memory poured out of him, when he felt empty and cold, just a black shell, Severus pulled his hand away from the blood still gushing from his neck and gripped Harry’s robes instead. “Look at me,” he whispered, because Harry’s eyes looked deep blue in the dim light of the shack.

And when Harry did, just as the world was fading away to black, and as his limbs grew numb, Severus gathered the last of his strength and told him, “You had bruises on your wrists,” as if that somehow explained it all – everything he’s done.

And when he died, just after Harry Potter ran from the room, ran off to fight a war and battle the Dark Lord all alone, Severus let go of his cold, dark life with both hands and smiled. He fell back into a field of soft lavender, cradled in velvet, and he realized he was no longer afraid to die alone. Because his mind had given him one last beautiful gift before he faded away.

His mind imagined John Watson standing in the doorway, calling his name.

 

\--

 

Every year, on the 9th of July, John Watson asks Sherlock to go with him to the park. 

He takes him by the place he’d been standing when he heard Mike Stamford call his name. And John turns to him, and takes Sherlock’s hands in his in view of everybody, and he tells him that he never thought he would have any of this in his life. How if someone had told him decades ago, on this day, that in the future he would have a home, and a clean bed, and a career – how he would wake up each morning beside the love of his life, who loved him back – he would have thought that person had gotten him mixed up with another John Watson somewhere on earth.

And he doesn’t tell Sherlock that decades ago, on the 9th of July, his father beat him so badly he was throwing up blood, and Severus came to find him when he didn’t show up at the usual time. He doesn’t tell Sherlock how Severus had begged him, pleaded with him to heal himself, and how he had refused. How Severus had made John lean back against him, and held him gently in his arms, wiping away the blood from his face with his sleeve, and sang him a strange hum he had learned from his mother when he was very small.

He doesn’t tell Sherlock any of that. Not yet.

But John does tell Sherlock that he’s the light of his life, his reason to keep breathing. He tells him that he was on his way home to end it all the day he heard Mike Stamford calling his name, after he’d finished his errand to Gringotts. And he tells him that he believes he was born, placed into the world, to follow Sherlock Holmes to the edge of the earth. He tells him that he would give up his own magic if it meant he could stay by his side.

And every year, on the 9th of July, John can tell Sherlock is thinking of the 2nd of May – about everything he doesn’t know, and might never understand. And so John kisses him, right in front of them all, and he doesn’t complain when Sherlock can’t find any words to say in return.

 

\--

 

2005

“No matter what happens, I love you,” John says quietly, with the chain surrounding both of their necks and the Time Turner hanging in between them.

Sherlock nods. He keeps his face from showing all of his terror, all of his dread that John won’t say the same thing once Severus Snape keeps breathing. He leans forward to kiss John’s forehead, suddenly nauseous that he doesn’t know exactly when he will get to do that again.

“And I love you,” he says back, keeping his voice calm. “No matter what happens.”

John smiles, as if he truly believes that this won’t be their last time – their last time together in 221B, their last time together in the present, their last time being _them_.

And if John is smiling, then surely Sherlock can put on a smile too, because he wants their last moment together in their flat to be this: John Watson excited to go on another adventure with him. So he smiles back, and he presses his fingers to John’s wrist the way he always does on their way to a new case in the back of the cab.

John’s breath is uneven, shallow in his chest as he holds the Time Turner between his fingers. And John doesn’t even take one last look around at their combined life in the flat, and so Sherlock doesn’t either, because that would be jinxing it, and he suddenly hates himself that here, now, in his last ever moments at home with John Watson, he is being superstitious. Utterly sentimental.

“This will feel like falling,” John says. “And we’ll land on what was here in 1998.”

“An empty flat, between renters – I checked,” Sherlock adds. 

“And we have the bag – we have everything?”

Sherlock shrugs his shoulder with the rucksack slung over it – filled with items he barely even knows the proper names of, items which have been shrunk down magically to all fit and which will somehow help save a man’s life who is already dead.

And with that, John nods and starts to turn the little gold knob with his fingers, and Sherlock wants to reach out and grab his hands and rip them away, to put a stop to it all, to beg John to reconsider. Wants to tell him that he hadn’t even been serious this whole time, even though they’ve spent weeks planning every detail, considering every potential problem, even though Sherlock has devoted the energy to this he would normally save for a locked room murder. He suddenly wants to rip John’s hands away.

But then he thinks of John flying on a broom through the air, free and untethered to the ground, and his heart aches, and he presses his forehead to John’s as the floorboards disappear beneath their feet, and the world spins, and Sherlock Holmes leaves everything he’s ever known behind – even science itself.

 

\--

 

1998

They land in mud. Sherlock’s feet hit the earth so hard he thinks every bone in his spine has shattered. He stumbles back.

“Easy there.” John’s hand is suddenly gripping his shoulder, saving him from collapsing to the ground. Sherlock gulps down air, reeling as the world slowly settles around him. He takes in the sound of the street, the design of the buildings, the smell in the air, and he knows that it’s worked – and also that they’ve somehow landed in their little backyard.

“We’re in 1998,” he says in awe.

John laughs beside him, but it’s a nervous laugh. “Yeah, well, that was the point.” He slowly slips his wand from his pocket, whispering, “ _lumos_ ” before holding it out before them. “Not sure what went wrong –”

“We’re in our backyard,” Sherlock cuts in.

John looks at him. “Seriously, how could you even tell that in the dark?”

Sherlock shrugs. “Recognized the feel of the mud.”

John laughs, and Sherlock wants to reach out and hold John’s cheek and suggest they go and find a nice murder instead, or even just a robbery, anything to take John on one last case with him, one last time.

But the clock is ticking.

John takes his arm firmly in his. “Hate to tell you this, but, Apparition is going to feel even worse. You might throw up.”

Sherlock scoffs. “I think I can keep my bodily functions under control for two seconds of travel.”

John shrugs, and Sherlock can feel his fingers shake. “Hold on tight. Haven’t done this with a side-along in forever,” John says, and before Sherlock can respond that it might have been beneficial to practice _before_ they were racing against the clock to save Severus Snape’s life, the entire world around him flashes into smoke, and he is being pulled and twisted and yanked through a tiny hole in the universe, and every bone in his body jumbles out of order, and when his feet next hit the ground – soft, wet grass – Sherlock takes two stumbling steps away from John’s arm and throws up violently all over John’s shoes.

Sherlock gasps for air, wiping his arm across his mouth. “Fucking _hell_.”

He hears John chuckle above him, already waving his wand silently to clean up the mess, not even phased. “Must have been worse at that than I thought if I got you to curse,” he whispers. 

And that – John whispering – reminds Sherlock that they shouldn’t even _be_ here, and that they just traveled to the center of a war that’s never been in any history book Sherlock’s ever owned, and that everything he’s ever known and loved relies on his ability to succeed for John Watson over the next few hours. Because he is finally here, on the 2nd of May, he is at the source of everything, and even though his past self is off doing cocaine in a filthy flat halfway across London after solving another case for Lestrade, he is also _here_ , with John Watson, and he will finally know about the 2nd of May – why John calls out “ _episkey_ ” in his sleep.

He stands up straight, brushing off his coat, and John’s smirk falls quickly from his face. They stare at each other in the middle of the darkening field, and Sherlock can make out the outlines of an enormous castle dotting the sky at John’s back, and John’s feet are spread wide, shoulders straight and ready for battle, and they take one last breath together in the silent calm.

“Right,” John says.

Sherlock nods. “Right.”

The evening air around them crystalizes into prickling focus. Sherlock can hear every blade of grass whisper in the wind, and count every single tree along the tree-line, and feel every single place on his skin where John’s magic kisses him as John hums a spell over their bodies, gently arcing his wand.

“This will buy us a few seconds of time if we come across anyone,” John says. “But stay close to me. Whatever happens, you will do as I say.”

Sherlock’s heart races, and he opens his mouth to tell John Watson he will do whatever he says unless it means leave him behind, but then John says, “Sherlock, promise me. Promise me you’ll do as I say.”

He nods. And he follows silently, on ghostlike feet, as they race across the moaning grasses waving in the darkness, creeping closer and closer to the castle piercing the sky as flashes of light, orange and green sparks, explode among the thick, black clouds in the distance. 

John’s back is warm and sturdy in front of him. Sherlock clutches John’s illegal gun in his hand, safety clipped off, but his fingers suddenly ache for a wand, even though he knows it would be absolutely useless.

“I’ll take you back here one day,” John whispers, barely making a sound over the eerie breeze. He looks back at Sherlock under the light of the storming moon, and Sherlock flexes his jaw against the urge to say back, “ _but will you?_ ”

Instead he says back, “Where is he right now?”

John’s eyes grow dark, and they continue creeping through the brush, wand and gun raised. “He’s being chased away from his school by his fellow teachers, I think. If my timing is correct, based on the memories from Harry.”

Sherlock shivers at the reminder – the memories he’d found out about only days ago that now haunt his every waking moment, crawling under his skin.

“I don’t understand why we can’t just go back to the day before the War and take him away,” Sherlock had said to John in their kitchen, leaning over a table full of notes and plans and nearly stomping his foot in frustration.

John had hung his head, messing up his hair with his fingers. “Because, Sherlock, as I’ve told you a million times, Harry Potter needs to see the memories, he needs to –”

“So leave him a bloody letter to find, explaining what they all were! It doesn’t make any sense why, after all of this, you’re still willing to let him get bit by that snake.”

And John had grown deathly still, the air in the flat crackling. “Sherlock, whatever Harry Potter saw in those memories gave him the strength to go off and walk into the forest, alone, to face the most powerful wizard of all time. I can’t mess with that –”

“But you’ve seen the memories, haven’t you?”

And John’s voice had wavered. “I have. Harry found me to give them to me after I was discharged. I watched them the morning I first met you.”

And Sherlock had thought of the 9th of July, of John telling him he had been on his way home to end it all, and he’d said, “Weren’t they all just a bunch of memories about you?”

And John had nodded, with dark eyes, and suddenly Sherlock had realized that the simple act of witnessing this Severus Snape’s love for John Watson had won an entire war, had changed the entire course of the Boy Who Lived’s path, and the thought of that had made Sherlock feel so wretched, so gutted into just an empty shell, that he’d wanted to tear apart all the plans on the kitchen table with his bare hands. 

And before he could say anything, John had stepped forward and taken his hand, and his voice had been broken. “Do you really think I want him to be attacked? That I want him to still go through that?” Which made Sherlock close his eyes and suddenly imagine John Watson lying on a cold floor with a bleeding neck, crushed by the weight of a snake, and he had moaned softly in his throat, and pulled John into his arms. “No. No, I don’t. I’m sorry.”

So Sherlock reminds himself now, as they move through the darkness, that Severus Snape needs to give his memories to Harry Potter, and that he - Sherlock Holmes - needs to be able to think about that without being sick to his stomach. Because now John needs him.

They continue to creep through the darkness, sweat prickling on their skin. The sky above them moans, black clouds ripping their way through the air, and the thunder parts just as a giant skull spits out a snake, illuminated by fire.

He hears John gasp in front of him, “the _mosmordre_ ,” he breathes, and icy fear clutches around Sherlock’s lungs, freezing his blood. It hisses above them in the dark sky, screaming in thunder and lightning, and Sherlock realizes that if he had seen that on a poster in a suspect’s flat he would have run away in sheer terror, too, and vomited in horror.

And he realizes that John has seen that mark etched into skin he once loved – skin he once held – and his palms sweat at the sickening though, queasy in his gut.

They’re close enough to hear the screams in the distance, flashes of spells echoing across the black skyline. Fear slithers down Sherlock’s spine, fear and nausea, because he knows, even though they haven’t spoken about it, that Sherlock’s real self in 1998 is off right now with a needle hanging out of his arm, while people were dying, while John’s life was being irreparably ruined, and while a young boy named Harry Potter was walking into a forest to face his own death. And Sherlock had been _high_.

He breathes out sharply. He opens his mouth to ask how close they’re getting, when suddenly John’s arm is plastered against his chest, holding him back. The world hums.

“John –”

“Shut up,” John hisses. And Sherlock realizes how his wand is held dangerously in his hand, how his shoulders are squared. The wind whistles through the trees and the grasses, silent screams moaning across the grounds.

And a twig snaps in the close distance.

“When I tell you to run, run,” John breathes.

Sherlock’s throat closes up. “But –”

“Sherlock, do as I fucking say. Run when I say run.”

And Sherlock doesn’t even have time to nod before a flash of light booms out of the forest in front of them, and John grunts as he throws up his wand to block them from the spell, the brilliant white shield screaming from the tip of his wand. And John doesn’t tell Sherlock to run, but suddenly Sherlock finds his feet lifted from the ground, and his body is thrown back harshly against a nearby tree, and he can’t even move.

John’s wand is pointed at him, binding him like a chameleon to the trunk of the tree with invisible rope, and John’s eyes look fierce, and he whispers, “I love you,” before he turns and screams out “ _Stupify!_ ” into the darkness.

Sherlock watches frozen, horror boiling in his gut as two figures cloaked in black slowly emerge from the trees, faces hidden behind glowing white masks, easily dodging John’s spell. John stands for battle, wand held gently in his fingers, and his jaw is clenched.

“Well, well, what an unexpected gift to stumble upon,” one of the figures says, and Sherlock struggles, how he _struggles_ to pull away from the invisible binds around his skin, but whatever John did to him is too strong to move, to even take in a full breath, and the ghostlike bonds dig sharply into his flesh. The figures move closer, and Sherlock watches helplessly as John stands strong, wand ready at his side.

“John Watson,” the other one says, “You’re supposed to be off in Afghanistan, today, are you not?”

The other chuckles, flinging a wordless spell at John’s face which he blocks without even flinching. “And your hair . . . seems a bit too grey for your age, does it not? Unless you’ve aged prematurely –”

“ _Expelliarmus!_ ” John starts to cry, but the figure simply flicks his wand, and a slash of blood appears across the front of John’s chest. John gasps, but doesn’t hunch over, and fresh blood starts to stain the front of his shirt, dripping from the wound.

“You’re a bit rusty, Mr. Watson,” the other one says, drawing closer.

Sherlock tries to scream, but his mouth is frozen shut. His eyes sting. 

“It would appear,” says the other one, nearly crooning into John’s ear, “since you have that disgusting whiff of the future about you, that you are aware of the meeting the Dark Lord has planned shortly for our dear Severus?”

John flinches, gripping his wand harder.

“Ah, yes, he certainly knows. Can you imagine, Mr. Watson, how pleased the Dark Lord will be to see you at that meeting as well?”

The other one – the other Death Eater, Sherlock now realizes – twirls his wand by his wide and cackles. “Oh, yes, what a touching reunion. Slimy Severus and his little fag soldier. Nagini can kill you both together. Maybe the Dark Lord will even let you die holding hands –”

“ _Confringo_!” John screams, echoing through the forest, wand moving so quickly it’s just a burst of light through the sky, and suddenly the air is filled with flashes of light, curses screaming across the little clearing, and the heat of the magic tearing through the air nearly burns Sherlock’s skin. He watches, completely frozen, as John blocks curse after curse, fighting two-against-one, as a war plays out before his very eyes, one Sherlock could never hope to win, and Sherlock can see the sweat pouring down John’s forehead, and feel the fury in his magic, and he wants more than anything to fling himself in front of John and scream, “Take me! Take me instead!”

But he can’t, and John fights, and one of the Death Eaters suddenly laughs, a shrill, disgusting sound curling up towards the sky as he hisses, rising up into the air in a black plume of smoke before pointing his wand straight at John and crying out, “ _Crucio!_ ”

John drops to the ground, screaming in agony, writhing in the grass as tears streak his cheeks, and Sherlock can do _nothing_ , has to stand there and watch, and he thinks his heart will give out, will explode in his chest.

The Death Eater floats back to the ground, holding his wand on John’s gasping body for one more second before pointing it away. John moans, sobs breaking out of his chest as he pants on the grass, crumpled in the wet dew. And the Death Eaters start to walk towards him, ghostly demons with their pale hands outstretched to drag him away, away from Sherlock Holmes forever, away to die.

“Tell us, John Watson,” one of them whispers, voice like silk. “Who is it you were talking to before we arrived here, hm?”

“Yes,” the other hisses. “Let us rescue your muggle friend from wherever you’ve hidden him. I can smell the rotten blood in him from all the way over here.”

The Death Eater raises his wand, straight between John’s eyes where he still lies shaking in the grass. “Perhaps you need some assistance, to be able to tell us?” His wand glows red. “Or we could simply fling curses at random, hitting every tree . . .”

And John Watson lifts his head, just the tiniest amount, and Sherlock’s chest soars that he’s _alive_ , and just as the Death Eater’s hands are almost upon him, John suddenly screams, “ _Sectumsempra!_ ”

The Death Eater before him flies back through the air, grunting at the burst of fiery magic, and he lands in the grass motionless, gurgling as his blood pours into the earth. 

John pants for breath, struggling to his feet, and after the second Death Eater tears his gaze away from his partner, he stalks towards John, raising his wand and screaming, “ _filthy mudblood_ ” in his face. Sherlock watches, overwhelmed with terror, as John suddenly kicks out his legs beneath him, bringing the Death Eater hard to the ground and pinning him down with his body, wordlessly flinging the Death Eater’s wand from his hand. Sherlock fights to escape from his binds, desperate to pull John back from that motionless white mask, but John points his wand straight between the Death Eater’s eyes as they struggle. He leans down, hissing something directly into his face, and a flash of purple light slashes across the Death Eater’s chest, and he falls back motionless to the ground.

Sherlock’s lungs are shaking, and he tries to call out in joy, and he thinks John will rush to him, will free him from his binds so he can kiss him, cradle him in his arms and make sure he’s alright. But John looks up at him, and his eyes glaze over, and he falls back into the grass with a soft moan, covered in his own blood, and his wand drops from his limp hand.

“John!” Sherlock tries to cry, John’s spell is still too strong. He struggles against the invisible binds with all of his strength, grunting wildly at the effort. But a deep blackness suddenly descends over the forest, cutting off the faint light from the moon and stars. It pulls and hums at Sherlock’s soul, squeezing his heart, because he is about to watch John Watson die, and he can’t even call out that he loves him.

Then his face is being pulled, ghostlike hands sucking up the all the light and oxygen from within his body, and Sherlock realizes in horror that there is a giant black ghost, hovering in the air before him and cloaked in tattered silk. The ghost hisses into his face, opening its mouth to reveal a deadly black hole, and Sherlock is frozen as every good thing in the world is destroyed. He can’t think about John’s smile, or their first case together, or John taking his hand on the 9th of July, because everything is gone, everything is _lost_ , and he feels himself drifting, drifting, drifting away as the world fades to black, as the ghost in front of him gulps down his screams like water, sucking his face, covering everything in the world with despair, and he can’t remember his own name, and the pain of his soul being snuffed out is sharper than he ever even imagined it could be, and then –

Light.

The ghost screams and shrivels away as the giant glowing bear bursts across the sky, tackling it with its paws and roaring into its empty face. The forest is bathed in light, humming so loudly it drowns out the sound of the entire war – the whole world. Sherlock’s invisible binds fall away, and he collapses to his knees at the foot of the tree just as the black ghost shrieks and hurls itself back up into the sky, and Sherlock realizes that the bear is bursting in a stream of light from the tip of John’s wand. And John is holding it aloft where he kneels on the grass, and blood pours from his chest, and he’s screaming, “Sherlock, run!”

And that’s when Sherlock notices a black figure in a white mask creeping up behind John Watson, raising its wand.

Sherlock doesn’t run. John’s bear chases the ghost off into the heavens, finally evaporating into the sky, and John’s wand arm falls back limp into the grass as he gasps for air. Sherlock reaches into his pocket and whips out John’s revolver. And just as the Death Eater is raising his wand to the back of John’s head, and whispering the start of a spell – “ _Avada k--_ ” -- Sherlock aims from the shadows, steadies his fingers, and fires.

The crack of the gun pierces the sudden silence, left over after the humming whoosh of John’s Patronus had turned into wisps of silent smoke in the sky. The Death Eater stumbles two steps backward in the grass, and John ducks his head into his hands at the sudden noise, and just as the Death Eater tries to raise his wand one last time, pointing it towards John’s face as he falls, Sherlock shoots him again, just over John’s shoulder, and the cloaked body falls lifeless to the ground with a soft thud.

Sherlock runs. He runs to the Death Eater he just shot, checking his empty pulse, then sprints to the other one to check they’re both dead. And when he knows that neither one of them will raise their wand against John again, he runs back to John where he lays in the grass, reaching up a bloody hand to catch Sherlock’s as he reaches his side.

Sherlock falls to his knees, clutching John’s bloody fingers within his. “John,” he whispers. John’s chest is covered in red as it rises and falls, trying to breathe. His voice moans softly in the back of his throat in pain. “John, heal yourself, please,” Sherlock begs him, and he knows that John won’t do it, because he never has. He didn’t heal himself that time the bullet grazed his thigh before Sherlock could first tell him he loved him, and he didn’t heal himself for all the years he was growing up being beaten in his house, and he didn’t even heal himself when he was shot straight in the chest in the middle of a desert. But still, Sherlock pleads with him, begging, holding his hand.

“I can’t do this without you,” he says, and John’s eyes flutter open. “John, please. Please heal yourself. _Please_.”

And he feels John’s fingers gently twitch against his own, a sign of life, and then John places Sherlock’s palms over his own chest, holding his fingers. And Sherlock feels a rush of magic through his hands so intense he gasps out loud, and he watches as John’s magic, sparks of clean light, flow through his own fingers and into the blood, gently stitching closed the wound. Static zings up his spine, clinging to his hair, and the little piece inside of him that had been dimmed by the ghost flares back to life, flaming and true.

John sucks in a desperate breath when his chest is healed, just a faint scar hidden beneath his sewn-up shirt, and immediately tries to sit up. “Sherlock,” his voice is hoarse. “Sherlock you’re alright? Are you alright?”

And Sherlock can’t answer him, is so overwhelmed that John’s first thought after healing himself is asking if Sherlock Holmes is alright, that he leans down and pulls John into his arms, hugging him fiercely. And John hugs him back.

“Christ, Sherlock,” he breathes, and they hold each other tighter, arms gripping desperately to backs under the stars. “Shit, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t hear them, didn’t realize sooner –”

Sherlock kisses him, panting into his mouth as they both catch their breath, still kneeling in John’s blood coating the cold grass and tasting the words on his lips. He holds John’s face in his hands, and his eyes are wet. The leftover fear and adrenaline shake through his limbs, closing up his throat. 

“You saved my life, you idiot,” he chokes out, “Why the hell are you apologizing?” And John laughs, still wheezing, and holds Sherlock close by the back of his neck.

“I’m not the one who just shot a Death Eater with a muggle gun,” he says back, and Sherlock hears himself giggle, and it’s all so wondrous, kneeling in the middle of a war laughing with John Watson who just _saved_ him. Who thought of meeting Sherlock in a lab at St. Bart’s and produced a glowing bear who just chased the darkness away, banished into the sky.

But then Sherlock remembers, holding John’s face in his hands and laughing, that John probably thought of meeting Severus Snape in a railyard to produce his bear, and his chest hitches sharply on the thought.

John sobers, too. “We’ve lost time,” he whispers.

Sherlock nods, understanding. “To the shack.”

They move quickly through the shadows, listening to every leaf rustle, every branch shake and moan, sticking so close together they keep stepping on each other’s feet. When the leaning tower of a building finally comes into view through the trees, Sherlock shivers, because _this_ is the place John visits every year on the 2nd of May, and it’s the most horrible, the most sinister place Sherlock’s ever seen. He reaches out for John’s hand, clutching the icy fingers.

He feels John shiver. “Is he already in there?” Sherlock whispers, because that ghost could have been gulping down his screams for five seconds or five whole hours and he wouldn’t even know, can’t even begin to tell.

John shakes his head. “Not yet.”

They crouch behind some boulders, and John whispers protection spells at their backs, sealing in the air with his magic.

“John, what was that . . . that _thing_ \--”

“A Dementor,” John says, and even the word sends fresh chills up Sherlock’s spine. The Shrieking Shack groans and sags before them under the wind, and Sherlock reaches out unconsciously to take hold of John’s arm where they crouch in the shadows.

“They used to be the guards at Azkaban,” John goes on. “They feed on your soul – your happiness.”

Sherlock swallows hard, something horrible clicking into place in his brain. “Wasn’t he held there, though? Waiting for his trial? Was he guarded by those things?”

John’s voice is a hoarse whisper, “Yes.”

Sherlock feels his face blanche under this new informatoin. “You said ‘used to’ guard Azkaban . . .”

“Now they’re under control of the Ministry.”

Sherlock frowns. “The Ministry? But didn’t they just try to attack us with the Death Eaters –”

“Exactly.”

Sherlock swallows hard over a sudden wave of nausea, because _this_ is what John has dreamt of for almost eight years – this destruction, this utter chaos, this unimaginable darkness, and he realizes now, more than John’s explanations could ever have shown him, why John would be willing to let Severus Snape have his neck ripped out by a snake if it meant Harry Potter would once again succeed.

The screams continue in the distance, and booming spells curse the sky. John rifles in their bag using the light from his wand, pulling out a vial of one of the potions he’d been brewing for weeks back at home.

And Sherlock blinks away the sting in his eyes when he remembers how home probably won’t be _home_ again. 

He watches, awestruck as he has now for weeks, as John effortlessly handles the potion in his hands, hovering a feather into the air for a moment before letting it fall into the bubbling thick liquid in the vial. The steam hisses. John waves his wand once and the sound becomes muffled.

“Do you. . .,” Sherlock whispers, and he almost stops himself because he knows that they’re in a war, and they both almost died, and they’re waiting for Severus Snape to walk to his death, but John looks up at him and hums, face clear, and Sherlock takes a deep breath and says what he’s been holding in for weeks – for years.

“Do you even realize you’re doing it?” he asks.

John frowns. “Doing what?”

“Doing something _impossible_! Doing something that’s . . . breaking every law that exists in the known universe, breaking apart physics, and you’re doing it without even speaking, just a wave of your hand –”

Sherlock’s words die in his throat, because a figure has appeared out of thin air from the threatening clouds, in a plume of swirling smoke, and he knows before the pale head even emerges that he is looking at the Dark Lord Voldemort.

John hasn’t seen him yet. He huffs under his breath. “I did realize it – when I was younger. When I had someone to tell me how amazing it all was.” He bumps his shoulder against Sherlock. “And I started realizing it again after I met you, after you thought it was amazing –”

“John,” Sherlock whispers, cutting him off.

John’s hand runs up his arm. “Yeah?”

“Him. . .” Sherlock says, and John’s entire body tenses as he realizes the Dark Lord is practically floating across the grass, and the huge, thick snake curls around him like weightless smoke in the air, hissing in his ears. They enter the shack, and then another figure appears, and Sherlock’s heart is in his throat and his fingers go numb until he realizes this figure has long blond hair, not black.

“Lucius Malfoy,” John says, and his voice shakes. 

The earth pauses, everything muffled and on the edge.

“Soon,” John whispers. Sherlock grips his hand. “Soon.” 

They wait, and Sherlock feels time stretch out to the edges of the earth like an endless pool, and each muffled breath he takes is a ripple in the water, sharp with dread. Malfoy leaves, striding across the grass and looking nervously over his shoulder until he disappears off into the distance, heading towards the booming cries of the battle.

John is utterly still beside him, eyes never leaving the horizon line beside the shack, and just as the sweat is starting to freeze on the back of Sherlock’s neck, he is there.

Severus Snape walks quickly towards the shack in the moonlight, long robes trailing behind him in the breeze, and strands of hair blowing across his face.

Sherlock is struck dumb. Because _this_ man, this man who feels like he’s from an entirely different planet, from a completely separate universe from Sherlock’s own, looks so effortlessly human as he walks to his death. He is skin and bone, and his lungs are breathing, and John Watson knows firsthand the warmth of his skin.

John gasps beside him, bringing a hand to his mouth. “Oh, God. . .” he breathes, sending chills up Sherlock’s spine.

He can feel John shaking, legs tensed as if he will jump up from behind the boulders.

“John, don’t,” Sherlock whispers, because John’s hands are gripping fiercely to the surface of the rock, and his mouth is twisting, shoes scraping hard against the earth.

“He’s alive,” John says back, voice shaking, and Sherlock remembers, all at once, the night he first learned about it all.

They’d been lying in bed, just a few short weeks ago, with John using his fingers to trace warmth across Sherlock’s bare skin, and Sherlock’s soft cock pressed against his thigh. John had reached up and pushed his fingers through a handful of Sherlock’s curls, pulling gently until the hairs straightened, and with a force that had suddenly squeezed the air out of his lungs, Sherlock had to know.

“Were you ever together?” Sherlock had whispered out of the blue, and he’d thought that John was going to ask, “Who?” or say yes, of course, they were best friends, or change the subject, or pretend he didn’t hear.

And instead, John had simply said, “Yes. Once.”

And that word - _once_ \- had sounded so lonely in the warmth of their bed, so devastatingly small, and against his will Sherlock had felt pity for this man, this invisible, dead man, who only got to experience John’s hands on his skin for one night.

And now, watching that same man walk and breathe in the real, live world, Sherlock feels that sense of sadness all over again, and his eyes water at the knowledge that he is about to die with John’s name on his lips.

Except he isn’t going to die. Not when John is fiercely watching the shack before them, wand in hand, with a rucksack full of potions and spells that will somehow heal him, and a look on his face that Sherlock would bet wasn’t even so fierce when he was on the frontlines of Afghanistan, searching out wounded soldiers to save from the hailstorm of bullets.

The seconds tick by, and the skull and snake in the sky still slither across the lightning, and everything is quiet.

Then Sherlock nearly jumps out of his skin when they hear a loud clatter coming from the shack, and a series of harsh thuds, and then he nearly moans out loud when he sees the outline of a body thrown against the dirty windows before them.

And the windows become splattered with fresh blood, and a man cries out. And then the black shape slumps to the floor.

John’s hand is suddenly in his, fingernails digging into the back of his hand. His breathing is ragged, tearing in and out of his lungs.

Sherlock starts to rise, but John shoves him back down. “We have to wait for Harry,” he says, voice breaking. And then, as if on command, three young wizards – three _teens_ \- appear from seemingly out of thin air. The one in back folds a giant cloak in his hands, and Sherlock immediately recognizes the girl beside him as Hermione Granger, covered in dirt and blood and fiercely clutching her wand instead of sitting calmly in a homely kitchen with biscuits baking themselves on the counter and a toddler in her arms.

And the wizard in front charges into the shack on silent feet, breaking away from them.

“That’s Harry Potter?” Sherlock whispers, because he cannot believe that this young boy with the wire rimmed glasses saved John’s entire world.

“Yes,” John responds, still gripping Sherlock’s hand. His voice is tight.

Sherlock licks his lips, watching the boy’s shadow move through the visible windows and missing walls of the shack. He tries to find words. “But he’s so . . .”

And John doesn’t wait for him to finish. “Yes.”

The next moments feel like agony. Each second is hundreds of hours long, and Sherlock’s knees creak in the cold grass, and the far-off smoke fills up his lungs, and he knows that John is breaking beside him, barely even holding himself back, because _he_ is bleeding to his death just inside, scared and in pain, and John has to wait until the last moments, the very last possible second, so that Harry Potter can scoop up some memories into a little glass bottle in the middle of a war.

And Sherlock wants so badly to just say damn it all. To haul John to his feet, and hurl him towards the shack, and tell him, “Save him! Save him now!” And Sherlock will take John’s gun and kill fucking Voldemort himself if it means John won’t have to wait outside in the dark while Severus Snape is dying. While Severus Snape is in pain.

But John had told him, told him hundreds of times, “Harry Potter needs the memories.”

And so he waits.

Just when Sherlock thinks he can’t wait another second, the three young wizards suddenly exit from the house, disappearing into the night and running off back to the war.

And everything explodes.

John is on his feet in two seconds, reaching out for Sherlock’s arm, and Sherlock thinks they’re going to run, starts to sprint up towards the shack, when suddenly he is flying through the air, being squeezed through a funnel, and they’re inside the shack, at the foot of the stairs, and this time he barely stops himself from vomiting. He races after John up the rickety steps as John shoots protective spells all around them, buzzing dangerously in the air. As John casts hexes around dark corners, and kicks down a door, and Sherlock has never felt so awestruck, so utterly useless in his entire life. And they are standing in an open doorway, covered in cold cobwebs in the dark, and he hears John call out, “Severus,” before rushing into the room.

Sherlock stands dumbly in the doorway, uselessly pointing the gun back towards the stairs, as he watches John run to the body slumped on the floor, dripping with blood. The body which is gurgling and wheezing in pain, twitching on the floorboards. Which is starting to die.

He watches as John hurls himself at the man’s side, and unstops the tiny vial in his hands, pouring the potion down Severus Snape’s throat and brushing the bloody hair back from his face.

He watches John place his hands on the open wounds of Severus’ neck, not flinching at the blood, and a stream of spells, hypnotic like a drone, flow from John’s lips like a grieving song. His magic fills the room, suffocating Sherlock’s skin. It buzzes through the splintered floorboards and rattles the dirty windows in the walls. Brings dust down from the slanted ceiling.

And John’s magic is so fierce, pouring into Severus’ neck, that suddenly John and Severus rise up off the floor, floating in the air, and the force of it all shatters the windows and blows Sherlock’s hair back from his face. John’s magic howls through the shack, a brilliant burst of fiery light, and Sherlock thinks that maybe John’s fingers are burning themselves into Severus’ skin – if John isn’t killing him. And Severus’ pale hand in a black sleeve falls limp towards the ground as he floats in the air by John’s side, and John’s hands cradle his face, whispering by his lips, and John’s nose brushes against his before his magic gives one last burst of light, brilliant sparks pouring from his fingers and leaking out Severus’ open mouth.

And then, silence.

They both thump to the floor, and the shack is once more dark and still. Everything halts. Sherlock’s heart throbs painfully in his chest, and John is wheezing, trembling, as he stares down into Severus’ lax face, and Sherlock wants to collapse, wants to bite his own tongue, because maybe none of this even worked, and Severus Snape will remain dead, and John will never sleep again on the 2nd of May, or be happy in Sherlock’s bed because Sherlock’s hair isn’t black and straight, but then:

A gasp.

Severus Snape gasps in air, body flinching to life on the floor. And John cries out, “Thank God,” and cradles Severus up off the floor against his body, holding him fiercely to his chest. Sherlock watches, mouth dry, as John wraps his arms around the black robes, and holds the back of Severus’ head, fingers winding through the black strands, and John has tears on his cheeks, and he’s whispering, so softly, “You’re alright, you’re alright, Severus, I’m here, you’re alright.”

And Sherlock’s gut clenches when he realizes Severus Snape is crying, wretched groans escaping from his shaking chest, and one pale hand reaching up from the dirty floor to faintly hold on to John’s wrist with weak fingers.

It burns Sherlock’s eyes. It’s the most intimate thing he’s ever seen – far too intimate – watching this grown man he’s never even met sob in pain and relief in John Watson’s arms. Watching John Watson cradle the back of his head, the blood-soaked hair, and hold his limp body against his chest as if he weighs nothing at all. Watching John press his lips to the skin on his forehead in a soft kiss. “You’re alright, Severus. I’m here. I’m here.”

And Sherlock hears, where he still stands like a fool in the dark doorway, one words whispered so softly, so small and disbelieving, from against John’s chest.

“John.”

And that one word, that one tiny word, rips Sherlock Holmes’ world apart. It settles in his gut, piercing his veins, and flares like shame in his throat. Shame that he ever even held on to the hope, the tiniest hope, that John wasn’t lying when he told Sherlock, “I love you,” or, “I’ll take you back here one day,” or, “When all of this is over, we should take a trip, just the two of us to wherever you want to go. Wherever in the world.”

Because Severus Snape just said John Watson’s name the same way Sherlock always did in the pit of his own soul – the same way Sherlock had said it moments after a cabbie dropped dead at his feet and he turned around to see who had fired the deadly shot.

The same way Sherlock said it when John was asleep beside him, dreaming, thrashing in his sleep and clutching his wand, crying out, “ _episkey_.”

And John is holding Severus Snape against his chest on the cold floor in the middle of a war, whispering his name, and meanwhile Sherlock stands in the doorway alone with a pointless gun, and no magic in his fingertips, and in that moment the thought of him taking John back to 221B, to their muggle flat and tea making itself and rides through traffic in cabs, it all seems so ridiculous, so unnatural, so _wrong_ , that Sherlock swallows hard and takes one last look at John Watson, and then starts to make his way down the dark stairs, and he’ll hide away until 2005, and make it so John doesn’t have to look at him with an apology in his eyes, and make it so John doesn’t have to look up from Severus’ face, look up from cradling his hair, and say, “Oh, yeah, and this is Sherlock Holmes. My muggle flatmate who solves crimes. Who used to be a drug addict. Who says he loves me, but everybody tells me he doesn’t even have a heart. And he can’t even make his own tea.”

He doesn’t want John to have to say any of that, so he starts to creep away, desperately trying to breathe through his panic, the wild pain bursting behind his eyes as he stumbles, but he’s barely two steps out the door when he hears his name.

“Sherlock?”

And like a puppy, like a weak little kid, he runs back into the room, as if John’s voice is physically pulling him through the door. He slowly approaches them, heart in his throat at the amount of blood, the blood covering John’s clothes and the splintered wood of the floor. John waves one hand, silently making the blood disappear, and the broken glass on the floor from the shattering windows zooms back into place within the panes, and the fallen dust soars back towards the ceiling. And John reaches up that same hand towards Sherlock where he stands, gun dangling in his fingers, mouth open at the sight of Severus Snape _alive_ \- alive and sleeping peacefully in John’s arms, with just the faintest lines of cleaned scars wrapping around his neck.

“I gave him a sleeping draught,” John whispers, voice echoing in the room.

Sherlock nods, unable to tear his eyes away from the face pressed to John’s chest, the smooth, cleaned hair, the black lashes and thin lips.

John gently shifts him in his arms, bringing him down towards the floor to lie him down. He slips his wand from his pocket and waves it over the black robes, and the air around Severus’ sleeping form turns warm to the touch, and the floorboards beneath him soften, no longer rigid wood.

Then John looks up at Sherlock from where he still kneels on the floor, and his eyes are wet, and he whispers, faintly, “Sherlock,” in a way that makes Sherlock sink to his knees, and pull John towards him with a sigh, and hold him under his chin.

John throws his arms around Sherlock’s body, resting his weight against him. “Sherlock,” he says again, and suddenly Sherlock is the one holding a crying man on the cold floor, and Sherlock is the one cradling the back of a tired head, and brushing his lips to a forehead, and whispering, “You’re alright, I’m here, you’re alright.”

He rests his cheek in John’s hair, holding him so tightly his bones creak, and John grips back just as fiercely, letting relieved and exhausted tears fall on Sherlock’s unscarred throat.

So Sherlock stops thinking. He doesn’t think about the next few days of the plan – about recovery, or hiding out in the shack, or making Hermione’s potion to return to their time. He doesn’t think about what he could possibly say to Severus Snape when he wakes up, confused and in love with John. He doesn’t think about what 221B will look like without John’s things. He doesn’t think about magic, or wars, or the fact that he’s just traveled through time, and been attacked by a ghost, and watched John perform magic so fierce it floated two bodies up off the ground.

He just holds John tightly, sitting on the floor of the shack, and he presses a kiss into his hair. And his chest aches at the fact that John wanted to be held after remaining so strong, and he wonders if John would have wanted to be held by different arms if Severus Snape had been awake.

And he lets himself whisper to him, “I’d do anything, and I love you more than air.”

And he holds back the second part, the part he only wants to have to say once in his life: “ _And you can go._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of you who are reading this fic and letting me know you're enjoying it! I know I'm woefully behind on replying to comments, but please know that I read and treasure each and every one, and these comments are what's helping me write this story so quickly. All the thanks goes to all of you!
> 
> Part 5 (the truly final part) should be up soon! It's all plotted out and half-written. And for those of you still waiting for Priest!lock, I promise that update is coming up soon, too! Thanks a million for your patience. I desperately needed this story as a little break :)
> 
> Y'all are so cool.


	5. Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for coming along for the ride. I hope you enjoy :)

1973

John Watson was the first kid in his class to touch off the ground on a broom.

Severus watched him from the shade, standing half-hidden behind the trunk of a great elm while skipping his second Charms lesson of the term. He clutched his newest Potions textbook to his chest, letting strands of his oily hair fall into his face so he’d blend into the forest at his back, disappearing into the shadows. That way no one would know that he snuck out just to watch a first-year Gryffindor fly on a broom.

That way no one would know that John Watson had Snivellus as a friend.

His palms sweat as he stood waiting, watching John stand in a line with the other Gryffindor first-years, decked in their shining new red and gold uniforms blowing in the afternoon breeze, standing next to school-loaned brooms in the grass and calling, “Up!” for the very first time.

John’s robes were clean and shining, blending in perfectly with the students at his sides. It made Severus feel slightly nauseas to realize how much his own dirty first-year robes must have stuck out when he stood in the Slytherin line. How ragged he must have looked, how much of a disaster, when their Professor finally escorted him off the grass, hands not quite touching his shoulders, after he was the last student left trying to get his broom up into his hand, two hours after all of the other first-year Slytherins had already gotten up into the air, flying above his head.

He watched, heart in his throat, as John’s broom practically rocketed off the grass up into his palm, knocking his small form sideways with the force. He watched John’s smile explode across his too-thin cheeks, and stared as John straddled his broom and bounced on his toes with impatience, waiting for the Professor to give the okay for the students to leave the ground.

And he watched in pure awe when the whistle was blown, and John Watson’s feet left the ground so fast he would have missed it if he’d have blinked, and he shivered as John burst up into the sky, zooming straight towards the clouds, and the wind rustled his hair back from his face, and his Gryffindor tie pierced the sky with pure gold, and John soared above the turrets, dancing on his broom in a way that sent aches down Severus’ bent spine, and he wanted to reach up his hand towards the sky, and step out from the darkening shadows, and cry out, “Take me up there with you! Take me up to see the clouds!” because he had never managed to get off the ground once on a broom, even after two years, and John Watson was the sun, and to ride on the same broom as the sun would make everyone on the entire earth jealous, and every name he’d ever been called sound like winning some sort of award, tinged with gold, and he wanted to feel John’s hair upon his cheeks, and see his small hands grip the worn handle of the broom, and feel the power of his magic soaring them straight across the sky. 

And he wanted to be able to look down, for the first time in his life, and see that he was not forever tethered to the ground. And he wanted John Watson to be beside him.

But when John finally touched down, with his tie askew and his hair in shambles, he was swallowed up by a great wave of red and gold, and his classmates all cheered for him, and thumped him on the back, and chanted his name, and the Professor looked so _proud_ , as if her own son had just learned to fly, and suddenly the tiniest Gryffindor first-year that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had seen in years was the first student to master the skies, as easy as breathing.

So Severus didn’t reach up his hand and step out from the shadows. He picked up his other books from the ground, now damp and muddied from the wet grass, and he turned to walk back to the dungeons of his dorm, forcing himself to think over what homework he would complete in his bed – far off in the corner.

And so he was surprised, and whipped around with his wand raised in his hand, when someone grabbed his elbow and called out, “Wait!”

But nobody was hexing him, and instead John Watson was looking up at him with sparkling eyes, and pink cheeks, and he said, breathless, “Did you see me fly, Sev? Did you see me do it?”

And Severus could hear John wheezing in his lungs from running all that way across the grass to catch up to him, leaving all of his classmates behind. And he finally let himself smile, “I did see you fly. You put them all to shame.”

John’s grin was brilliant, brighter than stars. “I can’t believe I _did_ it!” he cried. 

Severus looked down at John, bouncing on his toes and beaming in the grass, and he noticed that his skin was scrubbed clean, and his hair was washed and soft. He noticed that the Nurse had cleaned the dirt from beneath his fingernails, and made his old shoes look like new. He reached out, meaning to just clap a quick hand to John’s shoulder, when suddenly he found himself with an armful of John Watson, throwing himself into Severus’ chest and hugging him, fisting his hands in his dirty robes. 

“I did it,” John whispered again, and Severus realized in a rush that this was the first time he had been touched by anyone else in nearly six days – not since he had put his arm around John’s shoulders on Platform nine and three-quarters, standing for the photograph his mum asked them to take when she dropped them off wearing mis-matched old shoes, and covering the mark on her cheek with muggle makeup Severus knew his dad hated that she wore.

So he let his books fall to the ground, and he put a thin arm around John Watson who was _shaking_ he was so happy, hugging Severus in broad daylight in the middle of the field. And Severus thought that maybe this was what flying on a broom felt like – where his limbs weren’t weighted down towards the floor, and he could finally breathe, and he looked around and knew in his bones that nothing could possibly make him feel unhappy.

But he looked up and saw James Potter, flanked by his friends, and his body came crashing back to earth with a painful thud.

“Looks like old Snape’s found a new toy!” Potter said with a smirk.

John tensed in Severus’ arms, looking up to see who it was, then he relaxed. “Oh, Potter!” he called out, smiling, because these were his Housemates, coming to say hello, and Severus knew that even after surviving eleven years in a house with his parents, John Watson still somehow believed all people were good. So John relaxed back against Severus’ body, with his hand still holding on to Severus’ robes, and he asked, “Did you see me fly? Did you all see it?”

Severus blanched as Potter smirked, looking down at John and holding out his hand. “We certainly did, Watson. You’re a real natural. Now come over here away from this one, and we’ll go back to our dorm.”

John gestured at Severus. “Oh, this is my friend Severus Snape,” he said. “He’s a third-year in Slytherin – he makes the best Potions in his class!”

And Severus saw, in bone-chilling slow motion, his entire life fall apart, because the gleam in Potter’s eyes was one he’d seen nearly every day since he first set foot on the Hogwarts Express, and John thought that he was nice, and John’s school tie matched the red and gold of the boys around them.

James Potter stepped forward. “Snape’s no friend of yours, Watson,” he said harshly. “Now get away from him before he gets you all greasy. Don’t want dirt on your new robes, do you?”

Severus couldn’t breathe, wanted to close his eyes and not even watch, as John stepped slowly away from his side, staring at him hard and squinting in the sun. “Severus isn’t dirty,” he finally said, and Potter huffed out a laugh. “Oh, he calls you Severus now, does he?” he said, taking another step forward. “Boys,” he called out to his friends, “Should we let our young Watson here know Snape’s real name? What he should be called?”

And Severus wanted to shrink away into the ground because John was standing there, looking confused as he watched James Potter raise his wand towards Severus’ face, and Severus had hoped he would have more time, just another few precious days, before John Watson found out that his wizard friend from back home was the most hated student in the entire school, and before he saw Severus cast spells that broke the rules – spells that were too dark – and before he heard what everyone called Severus behind his back, and to his face.

Just a few more days is all he had wanted.

Because John Watson had spent the last two years looking at him like _he_ was the sun – had begged him to teach him magic, and show him his books, and tell him every nook and cranny of the Hogwarts Halls, and John had run to his house the night before school started and climbed in his window and asked if they could stay up together and practice spells with pencils instead of wands, because Severus was a _wizard_.

And now all of that was about to be gone.

Severus clenched his fists. “Potter, don’t –”

“Don’t what, Snape? Don’t step in and save our new friend?”

Severus didn’t respond. He felt himself shaking as John’s frown grew deeper, desperately trying to figure out why the air in the field was suddenly tinged and vibrating with danger.

The others joined in: “What’s a matter, Snape?” 

“Why are you holding back? Worried that Watson will be afraid of you?”

“Worried he won’t want to be your little toy?”

Severus reached for his wand, but Potter was faster, and before he knew it a hex was exploding in his face, stinging his eyes, and he felt warm liquid rushing from his nose, dripping down his lips.

“Keep your bloody hands to yourself, _Snivellus_ ,” one of Potter’s friends sneered.

Severus heard John gasp at the hex and the name, and he reached up to touch his throbbing nose, pulling his fingers away to see fresh blood. He wiped his sleeve across his face, but more blood poured down over his chin, staining his robes.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw John start to rush towards him, calling out his name to see if he was ok, but Potter took his arm. “Leave him be, Watson,” Potter said, steering him back towards the castle. “You’ll see – he’s earned that one.”

And they all laughed. And Severus didn’t want to look up, wanted to shrink away back into the forest to figure out how to stop his nose from pouring blood, wanted to disappear, but his eyes betrayed him and looked up at John walking away from him in the grass, being lead away by Potter and his friends.

And when they were almost back to the castle walls, John stopped and ripped his arm away from Potter’s grasp and looked back. And Severus was still standing there, at the edges of the field, covered in blood and clutching muddy old books against his dirty robes, and he hurt physically in his chest when John Watson’s face fell, and the light died from his eyes, because he knew now that Severus was nothing but a fraud, just Snivellus Snape.

And Severus wished that he had had a few more days.

-

When one of the other Slytherins told Severus that someone was asking for him at the door of their Common Room, two weeks later, Severus knew with full certainty that it was a joke. He held his wand steady, already preparing to cast shields against a stream of hexes when he stepped out of the small door into the dark hallway. But no spells flew at his face as the Common Room door slammed behind him, and John Watson was there, and he was sniffling back tears, and he threw himself against Severus and held on, and choked out, “Sev, I miss you.”

Severus knelt on the cold ground, bones melting in his legs, until he was eye to eye with John, and he hugged him and whispered, “don’t be,” when John tried to say he was sorry.

And he realized, as he held his closest friend in the entire world, that John’s face hadn’t fallen that day on the field because he had been disappointed – because he’d realized that he’d only been friends with Snivellus Snape all along. And John wiped his snot on his sleeve and asked, “Does everyone call you that?”

And Severus wanted to lie, but he felt himself nod, and John’s hands were on his nose, making sure the bone had healed correctly, and John whispered, in the halls of the dungeons, “I hate James Potter.” And Severus laughed, reaching up to wipe the tears from John’s cheeks with his thumbs as they both started to giggle.

“You have so much snot you ought to be a troll,” Severus said, reaching for his wand and gently cleaning the rest of John’s face and robes. And John held his belly as he laughed, echoing along the dungeons walls, and said back, “Well, if I’m a troll, then you’re a hag.”

 

\--

 

1998

Severus wakes up staring at a crooked wooden ceiling with the worst sore throat of his life. 

There’s a weight on his chest, and led in his limbs, and he feels that he has just run twice around the entire earth without stopping, and his lungs are pure sandpaper on raw skin, and he starts to close his eyes to go back to sleep for one hundred years, but then he notices a flash of gold at his side.

There’s a gasp next to him, swimming through the haze of his mind. “Severus?” he hears in a voice that jolts through his blood. He blinks hard, trying to focus his eyes on what’s real.

“Severus,” he hears again, and there is a warmth on his hand, a gentle pressure, and another bit of warmth brushing across his forehead, massaging his hair, and the bit of gold floating through the dark air is actually a mix of gold and silver, bending down by his side, and there is warmth on his cheek, and Severus doesn’t even realize that he’s shaking, that he’s gasping for air until he hears a voice, tickling by his ear, “You’re alright. I’m here. Severus, I’m here.”

He turns his head towards the voice, groaning at the ache that shoots through his muscles, and he comes face to face with John Watson.

And it is John’s hand creating the warmth seeping into his face, and John’s fingers wrapped around his own, and John’s hair, and John’s voice, and John’s body, and he isn’t lying dead in the sand with a bullet wound in his chest, and Severus thinks that maybe he’s caught in a spell – the worst spell that the Dark Lord has ever cast in his life – where he’s lying on the floor, weighted down by heavy led, and John Watson will always be a hallucination, just out of his reach.

But hallucinations aren’t warm.

“Severus,” he hears again.

He licks his dry lips, forcing air through his throat which feels like it hasn’t been used in years. “John,” he whispers back, savoring the rare taste of the word on his own tongue, and he hears a release of breath, a wet sigh, and the warmth is back on his cheek, brushing his hair.

“God, I’ve missed you,” he hears breathed into his hair, whispered against his scalp. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you . . .”

Severus opens his eyes again, and he latches on to deep blue – deep blue which should be halfway across the world fighting in Afghanistan, and he can’t remember where he even is or what has happened, and he has the vague feeling that he is now empty, that his soul has leaked, and there’s something about his wand, and the memory of wetness on his throat . . .

“John?” he whispers again, this time a question. His chest aches. “What happened?”

And John’s eyes are wet, and he lets out a harsh laugh, and Severus feels his body pulled up closer to John’s chest, with John’s hands on his back, held aloft in his arms, and John’s warm lips are by his ear.

“You died,” John chokes out, voice raspy and low, and suddenly, like a wave of magic slapping into his face, Severus remembers Harry Potter standing in the doorway of the Shrieking Shack, and a great snake striking at his throat, again and again, and memories being poured out, held in Harry’s hands, and a vision – an impossible hallucination – of John Watson saying his name.

He remembers dying on the cold floor, and wishing that a glowing bear had been by his side, and wet blood seeping through his hair, and snake-like eyes.

And he remembers that he’s never seen John Watson’s hair tinged with silver.

He reaches up with one hand, effort straining his bones, and rests it on the warmth of John’s upper arm, and John’s skin is _real_ , and Severus thinks that maybe this is all still a spell, but it’s the most wonderful spell that’s ever been cast in all the world, because he is here lying in John Watson’s arms, and he can feel his body, and he doesn’t even need a bear beside him when he can feel John’s hair against his face, and hear his breathing, and the wood of the Shrieking Shack feels like soft velvet beneath his bones, and he’s impossibly warm.

He closes his eyes, pressing his face into John’s chest and breathing him in, and John no longer smells like cardamom and sand, but milky tea, and fresh soap, and the crackling cinnamon of fierce magic, and soft wool. And John’s body is sturdy and soft against his own, far older than he had been the last time Severus had seen him appearing at the edge of a dark forest, and held his naked skin against his own, and kissed up his spine, and there’s a roundness to him that hadn’t ever been there before, a softening of sharp edges, and a quiet thrumming in his magic just under his skin, and the strength in his broad chest makes Severus feel incredibly small, small and safe, and John’s hands feel like they could hold the entire earth at once and not break it – a black feather in a steady, calloused palm.

And John’s voice vibrates against Severus’ cheek when he quietly says, “Sherlock, he’s awake.”

Severus tenses, uncertainty fizzing in his blood. He opens his eyes against John’s chest, looking back up into the dark, dusty room to see another man coming into view. He’s looking down at Severus, hands behind his back, and his dark curls fade in and out of focus in Severus’ exhausted eyes.

“So he is,” the man says, looking down at John’s head with an odd look on his face.

Severus feels John shift him in his arms, bringing him back down to the softened floor. The man is still looking down at John, face strained like he’s afraid, and then John does something Severus never expected in his whole life to see. John tears his gaze away from him lying back on the floor, and he looks up towards the other man and holds out his hand and whispers, “Come here,” in a voice that makes sickening realization dawn in Severus’ mind, flooding through his veins like fire and ice. And the man, the other man who still looks afraid, he reaches out and takes hold of John’s soft fingers, and he kneels down by his side, eyes sparkling and bright in the dim, dirty air of the shack, and Severus has the sudden realization that this man doesn’t belong here, and nor does John, and that neither of them should be kneeling on the splintered floorboards of the Shrieking Shack, probably covered in his own blood, and that instead they should be out in the bright sunshine and fresh air, without war around them, and without having to look at a dying man on the floor.

“Severus,” John says, voice so gentle it physically hurts. He puts his hand on the other man’s forearm, and Severus has to look away, as if John’s fingers on the other man’s skin are burning his eyes. 

“This is Sherlock Holmes – my . . . my one,” John whispers, and Severus tries to keep his eyes open as the other man looks over at John in slight shock, and Severus feels a little piece of his own soul crumple up and drown at the words, at the weight that they carry, and John’s hand is still smoothing back his hair, not pulling away, and John says, “I know you don’t understand, but . . . I had to . . . you were dead, and I . . . and Sherlock –”

“What John is trying to say is that we’re from the future,” the other man – Sherlock Holmes – cuts in. He speaks rapidly, like he’s nervous he won’t get all the words out if he stops for breath. “I am a muggle who knows that John is a wizard, and I know who you are, and in the original timeline that occurred you were killed here by that snake nearly eight years ago, and it absolutely devastated John, and so I met with Hermione Granger and borrowed her Time Turner and now we’re here. And John has just saved your life.”

Severus tries to process it all, mind racing in his throbbing head, and he looks back at John whose eyes are glistening wet, and who chokes out, “You died here alone, Sev. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t –”

“You came back to save me? So I wouldn’t die?” Severus asks, because that can’t possibly be what he’s just heard, and that little piece of his soul is still hurting, but less crumpled at the fact that John Watson might have cared that he had died – died with the Dark Mark still blazing on his arm, but he can’t be imagining this at all, because John’s hand is still real upon his cheek, and the other man looks so earnest and sincere, and Severus feels the ghost of Nagini’s fangs still seeping into his neck.

John nods. “I did. We did,” he says.

Severus swallows hard, willing the earth to stop spinning above him. “You’re really in Afghanistan right now?” he asks.

John nods again.

Severus reaches up and finds John’s hand, gripping it hard. “You said you’re . . . eight years. . . so you survive? You survive the war?”

Something in John’s face breaks, and his fingers grip tightly back to his. “I get shot in the shoulder, near the chest,” he says. “But I survive it. I’m alright.”

And the relief Severus feels is so sharp, so palpable, that he starts pouring out words he never even meant to say. “I gave Harry Potter my memories – all of it. You need to find him, need to see – it was all for you, so you could know –”

John’s palm wraps around his neck, covering where Severus knows there must be fresh scars. “I know,” John whispers. “He finds me. He gives them to me after I’m discharged.”

Severus tries to breathe. “And you saw them?”

And John leans down and presses a kiss to his forehead, right in front of Sherlock Holmes. “I saw them,” John says. 

Something clicks in Severus’ brain, information trying to settle into order. “Harry Potter – he wins?”

And to his surprise, Sherlock answers, “He does. He’s killing the Dark Lord as we speak, actually. The war is over.”

“Won’t we . . . we’ll be found,” Severus rushes out. “Don’t you – you have to leave. You both have to leave so you aren’t seen –”

“Severus,” John says softly, and his face looks like he’s in pain. “Severus, we won’t be found,” he says through frowning lips, and Severus realizes it all – what he’s trying to say. That no one will come and look for his body. That no one will realize he’s dead – not at first – and that he will probably lie here, on the cold floor, until he’s just bones.

The knowledge settles like tar in his chest, squeezing his lungs, and yet John Watson is here, here from the _future_ , and he stopped his entire life just to heal him, just so he could breathe, and Harry Potter finds him one day, and gives him the memories he apparently keeps, and it’s suddenly all so overwhelming that Severus shuts his eyes, struggling for breath, and he wants to tell John Watson that he should have let him die, that he must deserve it if no one even comes to collect his dead body, and he’s ashamed that John’s seen the memories now, the ones he’d thought had been so precious just hours ago, and he feels the pain in this Sherlock Holmes, the uncertainty that John has brought him back in time, in the middle of the war, and just to save _him_ \- an old teacher with a Dark Mark on his arm, with still-greasy hair, and still-too-thin legs, and scars covering his skin, and streaks of grey in his black hair from the stress and the exhaustion, and Sherlock Holmes must be wondering why on earth John wanted him to live, this wretch and empty shell of an ugly man, and maybe John is thinking the same thing, now that he’s seen him up close, and not just in his dreams, and Severus wants to know if John really did dream of him, what John means when he said he couldn’t go on knowing Severus was dead, and he wonders if John whispers magic to Sherlock Holmes when they have sex, because they must have sex if Sherlock is his _one_ , and he realizes, in a great gasp, that Sherlock Holmes’ face ealier had meant he’s afraid that John Watson will somehow choose him, choose Snivellus Snape, the Death Eater who died and rotted away, and he remembers the first time he saw John fly in the Hogwarts field, and he wants to scream that nothing so beautiful should be hiding away in the Shrieking Shack, nothing so beautiful should have been shot in the chest, should have to feel devastation over anything in his life, and he finally says, “I’m sorry.”

Sorry for everything.

John moans softly, gathering Severus back up into his arms. “Severus, you found me,” John whispers against his forehead. “You found me,” he says again, and Severus feels something being poured down his throat, a cool potion, and sleep starts pulling at the edges of his mind as John holds him, and he hears Sherlock Holmes asking if he’ll be alright, and John says one last time, “you found me,” before turning around and saying, “He’ll be alright, love. We’ll all be alright.”

-

The next time Severus opens his eyes, he’s lying in a fresh set of warm clothes. 

He knows he didn’t put them on himself, and John must have pulled his soiled black robes from his thin body, and seen the new scars covering his skin, and seen his showing ribs, and the wrinkles of his belly, and his forgotten cock, and he starts to burn with the shame when he realizes he can hear muffled laughter, floating in the air. And he peers through the darkness towards the other side of the room, and he sees John sitting back against Sherlock Holmes’ chest, between his thighs, and John is using his wand to create birds in the air out of the dust in the shack, and tiny animals, and he’s laughing against Sherlock’s chest as he makes them fly around in the air, and chase each other’s wings and tails, and Sherlock is looking down at him with pure wonder on his face, unmasked awe, and he watches Sherlock lean down and press a kiss into John’s stubbled cheek, eyes bright with hidden happiness, and John leans back into him, breathing a sigh as he lets his wand fall, and Sherlock holds him in his arms and whispers, “You found me too, you know,” in a voice Severus can barely hear, and he watches John shift to the side, facing Sherlock to say back, “And you know that I love you more than air.”

And Severus watches, unable to close his eyes or look away, as Sherlock’s lips tremble, and John reaches up to kiss Sherlock on the mouth, moaning into it softly, running his palm up Sherlock’s ribs, and Sherlock holds John’s face, and kisses him deeply, slow, long sighs into his mouth, and the sounds of their whispered gasps fill the room, and Severus is just about to force himself to look away from Sherlock’s hands on John’s bare forearms when John pulls back, and rests his head against Sherlock’s shoulder.

They both sigh. “I’ve never seen you look like this,” Sherlock whispers. “So light.”

And John smiles in the corner of his mouth, covering Sherlock’s hands with his own. “I haven’t felt this light since I was sixteen years old,” he says.

And Severus knows, without having to even think, that John Watson was sixteen years old when Severus kissed the hem of the Dark Lord’s robes, and had the Mark branded into his arm.

And suddenly, even watching John rest in Sherlock Holmes’ arms, Severus feels light, too. Because now he understands. And because John looked at his memories after surviving a gunshot to the chest.

And because John came back to save him, and asked Sherlock Holmes to come along.

 

\--

 

2000

There was something about the way Sherlock strode away in his coat that always made John’s fingertips itch. 

The way Lestrade and his team always watched him leave a crime scene with a mixture of envy and infuriation and awe. The way Sherlock saw the world as if his eyes themselves were made of magic, and the way he spoke faster than the speed of light, and the way he cured John’s limp in a matter of breathless hours, and the way he dashed down alleyways and asked John to bring his gun.

And the way he always turned around after walking ten steps away, and held back his gloved hand to wherever John was still standing, mouth hanging half open, and the way he called out, “John,” or “What are you waiting for?” or simply, “Come.”

And one day, as Sherlock Holmes strode away in his coat while Lestrade called after him to get his arse back there to finish a statement, and the lights from the police cars flashed in the night sky, and the police tape and crowds parted before him like a great sea, and as Sherlock turned around and reached out and said, “John,” John realized that he wanted to strip the leather gloves from Sherlock’s fingers. He wanted to feel those fingers beneath his own shirt, and smell the root of Sherlock’s curls, and kiss the inside of his elbow, feel the scars there under his tongue.

He wanted to look Sherlock in the eyes and tell him, “Do you realize that I grew up surrounded by wizards? By real magic that you don’t even know exists? And you’re still the most magical person I’ve ever met in my entire life. Do you even realize that?”

But he couldn’t tell Sherlock any of those things. Not yet.

So he jogged to catch up with Sherlock through the crowd, since he no longer needed his cane, and before Sherlock could drop his hand back to his side, John caught it, and held it briefly, and said, “You’re absolutely amazing, do you know that? Fucking insane. Spectacular.”

And Sherlock’s eyes widened briefly, more surprised than John had ever even see him, even after knowing him nearly four months, chasing him through the streets. And John let go of his hand, feeling lighter than air, and not even embarrassed, and he prepared himself for the hilarious onslaught of insults that was sure to flow from Sherlock’s lips – about how obvious it all was, and how John’s brain was just too small, same as everyone else, and how of course John would think it was spectacular when all he’s doing is just simple, pure logic.

But instead Sherlock dipped his head, color in his cheeks, and said softly, “Thank you, John.”

And John knew, right then and there under the flashing lights of the police cars, that one day, even years and years down the line, he would get to feel Sherlock’s fingers up under his shirt, and kiss the scars on the inside of his elbow, and smell the roots of his soft curls.

He knew it would happen. And so he reached out and touched Sherlock’s coat with his bare fingers and said, “You’re welcome.”

 

\--

 

1998

The man looks exhausted, even in sleep.

Sherlock sits silently by his side, keeping his mind blank as John wanders through the shack, re-casting all of the protection spells just in case, securing the perimeter so they can’t be attacked. 

It’s been three days since Harry Potter apparently walked into a forest and killed Lord Voldemort armed with only a wand and some faded memories, and in those days they haven’t heard a single soul come near, and Severus Snape has slept and slept, and John has paced, anxiously re-casting their protections until Sherlock finally makes him sit down when the sun starts to set, and each evening Sherlock grins and tells him, “Now I know how you must feel when I get hooked on a case,” but John never laughs.

And while John paces, and makes sure none of them will be killed or seen, Sherlock sits next to Severus Snape as he sleeps, and he doesn’t think.

He just looks, and he listens. He listens to the man breathe, still raspy in his throat. Hears the soft grunts that escape from his chest as he shifts in his sleep, body still aching. He looks at his skin, eerily pale, and his long hair that falls across his thin cheeks. He looks at his neck.

And Severus Snape looks so human, so unbearably fragile, in the soft t-shirt and flannels John had packed for him from their flat, stripped out of his layers of stiff black robes still caked in places with dirt and blood.

And his black hair is streaked with grey, and there are soft lines around his thin mouth, and Sherlock counts the scars covering his thin wrists and hands. The scars on his throat.

And he traces the lines of the Dark Mark with his eyes, the magic ink still etched into the man’s forearm, deathly still now that the Dark Lord is dead, snake no longer slithering across the skin, and he knows that John Watson’s lips have also tasted those lines – kissed the faint freckles hidden beneath the skull.

And Sherlock is glad that he’s alive.

Which surprises him, because this man has haunted his entire reality for almost five years, even before Sherlock realized who he was. He haunted Sherlock’s life when John first limped into Bart’s, and the first night they ever slept together, sweaty and naked beneath freshly tangled sheets, and he haunted Sherlock’s entire soul that one night he heard John call out a word that wasn’t in Latin in his sleep. That one singular night he heard him call out, “Severus,” while he slept in Sherlock’s arms.

And still, Sherlock watches him sleep on the softened floor, and he can’t bring himself to be angry that he’s breathing, because John said he’s never felt so light since he was sixteen, and Sherlock can’t forget, can’t bring himself to delete, the sight of John cradling his body on the floor. And even though John has kissed him, and told him he loves him more than air, Sherlock knows, like the solution to a crime, that his time to kiss John back is quickly ticking away.

And, somehow, he still can’t be angry. Which is infuriating.

Severus starts to shift in his sleep, turning over on the floor, which is odd, because Severus never stirs until he hears John’s voice, until John is in the room. But he’s waking up now, deep black eyes blinking blearily up at the ceiling, and he looks straight at Sherlock before Sherlock can sneak away.

They stare at each other in silence, sitting far too close than ever before.

Sherlock clears his throat. “I’ll go and get John –”

But Severus holds up a hand, struggling to push himself up to sit back against the wall.

Sherlock doesn’t help him, and Severus doesn’t ask. When he’s finally sitting upright, leaning his head back and trying to catch his breath, Sherlock shifts, scooting on the floor so that they’re facing each other in the dim light leaking through the dusty windows of the shack – the windows John had shattered and put back together again without even speaking a word.

“How . . are you feeling?” Sherlock finally asks.

Severus opens his eyes, and his lips twitch in the corner. “You don’t strike me as a man who would normally ask someone that question,” he says.

And Sherlock takes a moment to collect himself, because after all this time, after all of his conclusions, he hadn’t expected Severus Snape to be _intelligent_ , and it nearly strikes him as humorous that they both love John Watson. Because of course they do. And Sherlock realizes he should have listened, should have understood, when John told him that Severus Snape made the best potions in his entire class, because what John was really trying to say was that Severus Snape made the best potions in the entire world.

Sherlock tips his head. “True,” he says. “But John makes me be nice.”

Severus chuckles under his breath, voice still raspy. “I imagine John has a habit of doing that.”

And Sherlock thinks that they’ll fall back into uneasy silence, because he can’t quite yet bring himself to say the words, “ _You know that I’ll let him go, right? You know that you’ll end up with him, and that I won’t hold John back?_ ”

But then Severus looks at him for a long moment, and unconsciously touches his right hand to his left forearm, and says, “You’ve been Kissed.”

Sherlock frowns, heat rushing to his cheeks. “Yes I . . . well John and I are . . . we’re –”

Severus snorts softly through his nose. “I know you’re with John,” he says softly, “like that.” And Sherlock bows his head, suddenly embarrassed and ashamed for no reason, and whispers, “Yes.” And Severus says, “I meant that you’ve been Kissed by a Dementor.”

“Is that what they call it? Kissed?”

Severus nods, looking even more exhausted, and Sherlock shivers, remembering the black hole of a face that he and John haven’t mentioned since John chased it away into the sky. “How did you know?” he finally asks.

Severus grips his forearm with his hand. “They leave a mark – one that Dark Magic can sense. I can feel it on you. It’s fresh.”

Sherlock suddenly feels like one of his own clients, sitting on the rickety wooden chair of their flat - _his_ flat, he has to remind himself with a pang. “It happened here. On our way to get to you,” he responds, suddenly whispering.

Severus pulls his hand away from his arm, turning his forearm so the Dark Mark is hidden against his leg. “So you’ve seen the bear?” he asks. And when Sherlock swallows hard and nods he asks, “Had you seen it before?”

“Once.” Sherlock pulls up a bent knee and rests his cheek against it, hating that he feels so young and stripped bare in this man’s presence, even though they’re nearly the same age. “Do you have one too?”

“A Patronus?” Severus licks his dry lips. “I didn’t for a very long time.”

And Sherlock wants to know, and never wants to know, what memory occurred that gave Severus Snape the strength to be able to cast it. He wants to know and doesn’t want to know with all his soul. And so he doesn’t ask, and instead asks, “What is it?”

And Severus’ eyes look worn and sad, as if he’s about to give Sherlock bad news. His thin fingers twitch, like they’re reaching to grip a wand that isn’t there. “A black bear,” he finally answers, voice barely a whisper.

And oh, how Sherlock understands it all now. How he sees that it was foolishness he was still holding on to some hope, a tiny fluttering hope every time John kissed him over the last three days, because if he – Sherlock Holmes – could ever hope to cast a Patronus, it wouldn’t be the perfect pair to run alongside John’s, and he knows most people would probably bet his Patronus would come out as just a corpse, a body at a crime scene. not even something alive, not a bear to join John Watson’s as they run, side by side.

“Can I ask you something?” Sherlock says, because if he’s going to look at John Watson and say, “ _You can go_ ” he needs to know the answer to this question, and this alone.

And Severus looks so weary, body melting back into the rough wood. He doesn’t nod or say yes. “You’re going to ask me about this?” he asks, holding up his arm to reveal the full Mark still on his skin.

And it aches somewhere deep inside Sherlock, unexpectedly, that even here, even after everything, that this man would still think he needed to defend that he had changed. So Sherlock shakes his head no, and quickly moves to unbutton the cuff of the shirt he’s been wearing for three days, and he pushes up the sleeve until he can hold out the inside of his elbow, tilting it towards the light.

Severus doesn’t gasp, or give him a look, or start with some speech. He just says, “Ah,” and then, “Those are old.”

Sherlock nods, rolling back down his sleeve. “Not anymore,” he says, and Severus looks straight at him. “Not anymore,” he agrees.

The air settles, and Sherlock finds himself shifting closer to this man on the splintered floor. “I wanted to ask . . . the one thing I don’t quite understand. That I can’t fit into place.” Severus raises an eyebrow, waiting for him to go on, and Sherlock takes a moment to listen to make sure John isn’t somewhere near in the shack.

“Why,” he begins, “Why only once? John’s always loved you, even after that,” he points to Severus’ arm, “So why keep him away? Even when he was in the army, why never see him all that time. Why not be with him all those years – any chance you could? Why not _find_ him – protect him from getting shot if you’re such a great wizard, or, or _go_ to him after you had turned, after you had changed? Why just let him go?”

Severus sits silently waiting for Sherlock’s rambling question to be over, and when Sherlock forces himself to stop, to halt his brain, to not reach out and physically pry the answers from Severus’ lips, Severus rests his head back against the wall as if he’s in pain, and gazes towards the dirty window, streams of sunlight falling across his face.

He sighs. They sit in silence as the slow minutes tick by. Sherlock waits – wanting to grab his shoulders and shake him – force this Severus Snape to tell him why he had John Watson in his grasp and let him go, why he didn’t love him enough to keep him close, why he saw that John loved him, even with a Mark burned into his arm, and still kept away - still lived at a distance, even after everything had changed.

Because Sherlock can’t look at John and tell him that he can go if Severus Snape wouldn’t bloody appreciate it – wouldn’t even realize what he’s been given, and keep him close.

And finally, after what feels like hours, Severus clears his throat.

“John doesn’t really know this,” he says softly.

Sherlock tenses, palms sweating. “John hates being left out of things,” he says.

Severus sighs again. “I know.” He sits up straighter, once more looking Sherlock in the eye. “The Dark Lord,” he says, nearly whispering the word as if he was still alive, “He knew about John. About our . . . connection.”

Sherlock nods, clenching his fists to keep from reaching out and shaking the words from Severus’ thin lips.

“He threatened him – his life,” Severus says simply. “Just after John joined the army. First he wanted me to do the deed, and when I convinced him otherwise, he said a stray bullet could find his heart. One controlled by magic.”

Sherlock frowns. “You’re a wizard, though. Surely there was something you could do. He would have been safer with you nearby, and once you had changed –”

“That’s _exactly_ what would have put him in danger, can’t you see?” and Sherlock nearly flinches at the sudden anger in Severus’ eyes. “John had given up our world and walked away from everything, because of me – the Dark Lord shouldn’t have given a shit about him, practically living as a muggle halfway around the world. But he did, because he knew _I_ cared. Because he wanted to test me.”

Sherlock leans forward, flinging his hands, “So you just left him to be alone all those years? Didn’t write any letters to him when he was deployed? Left him to hear that you’d died through a bloody owl –”

“Listen to me, Mr. Holmes,” Severus suddenly hisses, eyes burning and fierce. He leans forward, voice like ice. “If someone powerful, someone dark, threatened John Watson’s life because they knew you loved him, wouldn’t you have done _anything_ , at any cost, in order to keep that from happening? Wouldn’t you have stayed as far away as possible, for as long as humanly possible, just to keep him alive? Are you telling me you wouldn’t do that – that you would put him in danger?”

Severus is panting, a light sheen of sweat across his pale forehead, and Sherlock thinks that maybe the black in his eyes will strangle him, jump out and drown him in anger.

“But he – the Dark Lord was gone, all those years,” he tries again. “Everyone thought he was dead, that there was no danger –”

“You, of all people, should be intelligent enough to know that a man like that is never truly gone,” Severus cuts in. He sounds exhausted. “And forgive me for being so blunt, but I highly doubt, if you ever relapsed, that you would find yourself knocking on John’s door immediately afterwards expecting him to take you in, like nothing had ever happened. That you would think his love for you unchanged.”

And Sherlock sees, all at once, that he would have done the exact same thing. Can see himself running away, as fast and as far as he could, if it made someone think that he no longer cared – if it made sure John Watson would remain alive, no longer a target. And he can see himself standing outside the door to 221B, with fresh track marks in his arms, and turning away without ever knocking on the door, leaving alone.

He can see it all.

Sherlock swallows hard, trying to unclench his jaw, and gives a small nod, and he knows that Severus sees it as the complete agreement that it is.

“You are a brave man,” Sherlock finally says into the silence.

Severus shakes his head, and Sherlock can see his pale cheeks heat with what looks like shame. “I am not. John only thinks so.”

And Sherlock finds himself smiling, to his surprise. “If you and I have learned anything, I would think it’s that John Watson is usually right,” he says, which makes Severus smile too, and for some reason that eases a darkness in Sherlock’s mind, hovering in his throat.

Severus relaxes back against the wall, chest rapidly rising and falling to breathe, and Sherlock is just about to force himself to say the words – that he will let John go – when Severus says softly, “You think that John will choose to stay with me.”

And Sherlock freezes, words caught in his throat, because to hear it said out loud is more painful than he could ever have imagined, and makes the walls of the shack feel like they’re falling in upon his head, and crushing his spine, squeezing his lungs, and he tries to blink away the sudden stinging in his eyes as he stares into the deep, black ones across from him, weighted and sad, and then he realizes that Severus is still talking, “. . . will go home with you.”

Sherlock’s limbs are numb. “He . . . what?”

Severus reaches forward like he’s going to hold on to Sherlock’s arm, then thinks better of it, letting his hand fall back to his side. “I’m telling you, John Watson will go home with you. Given the choice, that is what he’ll choose.”

Sherlock is shaking. “But you’re a wizard,” he hears himself say. “You are . . . you bought him his wand, and he taught you to fly –”

“And he also loves you,” Severus says softly, voice low and pained. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

“He looks at you the same way,” Sherlock cuts in, suddenly angry, and surprisingly Severus smiles, just a thin curve to his lips. “He used to, a long time ago. Before I did this,” he lifts his arm. 

“But he came back for you – he couldn’t sleep –”

“You’re the one who gave him the Time Turner --”

“He called out for you in his dreams –”

“And he asked you to come along.”

And Sherlock wants so desperately for Severus Snape to be correct. For his words to somehow be strong enough to affect reality – to make it all come true. He wants to tell this man, “he found me, just like you found him, and I don’t know what I’ll do.”

But instead he says, so softly he can barely hear his own words, “I’d do anything.”

And Severus closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath, before reaching out to place his weak fingers on Sherlock’s arm. And he whispers, “I know.”

And Sherlock swallows over the sudden lump in his throat, and covers this man’s hand with his own. “John will hate that we’ve had this conversation without him,” he says back. And Severus smirks, and opens his eyes, and Sherlock nearly gasps when he sees that they’re clear – free from exhaustion. And Severus looks at him in the dim light of the shack and says, “You’re a good man, Sherlock Holmes.”

And Sherlock grips his thin fingers harder in his palm and says back, “As are you.”

 

\--

 

Every year, on the 6th of January, Sherlock Holmes can’t bring himself to get out of bed.

He lies there, with John sleeping on his chest, lightly snoring, and he thinks back on all the years of his life he’s utterly wasted. He thinks of who he could be, or what he could be doing, if he’d never put that first needle in his arm lifetimes ago. He thinks of all the more people he could have saved, all the more crimes he could have solved, if he hadn’t been staring at the floor, starving himself and high.

He thinks of the looks on his parents’ faces that first time he’d woken up in a hospital bed, scared and confused, and he thinks about how his veins still burn with want for the drugs to bloom through his blood, and he thinks of how a man like John Watson – a wizard and a war hero and _good_ \- shouldn’t have to lie sleeping on the chest of an ex-drug addict.

And every year, on the 6th of January, John wakes up in Sherlock’s arms, and wordlessly lifts his wand towards the ceiling to turn it into a clear blue sky and clouds, banishing the black darkness clinging to the corners of Sherlock’s mind. And when Sherlock still can’t get out of bed, John makes him tea, entirely by hand, and he comes back and sits beside him under the covers, and he picks up Sherlock’s arm, his arm which is now one wretched year older, and he brushes his lips across the scars inside his elbow, softly kissing the raised skin. 

And John whispers, “the greatest miracle on earth is that you are alive.”

And Sherlock still can’t get out of bed, can’t face the world with this weight on his chest. And so every year, John lets him sleep, curled up in a tight ball, and he makes him more tea which grows cold on the bedside table.

And every year, even before he _knows_ , Sherlock feels the oddest sensation as he dreams, wisps of cool smoke brushing across his face.

And every year, on the 6th of January, even before he _knows_ , Sherlock dreams of a great brown bear.

 

\--

 

1998

One week after waking up in John Watson’s arms with a sore throat, Severus finally feels fully recovered.

He moves through the small rooms of the shack, silent as a ghost, and he stays hidden in the shadows, and forces himself to eat and drink, to not sleep away the days, and he tries to wrap his head around the fact that he is alive.

He drills it into his mind, over and over, that the Dark Lord is dead, and John Watson is from the future, and nobody is coming to look for his body, and that he can breathe. And as he roams, and thinks, he tries to stay as far away as possible from the soft voices he can hear – John whispering closely with Sherlock Holmes in the other room, talking through plans and magic and memories Severus will never have – memories that haven’t even happened yet in this world.

He lets them be, and tries his best to fade away into the wallpaper, and thinks that maybe it would be best for them all if he simply walked out – walked away from the shack into the night – but then John finds him.

He finds him when Severus is sitting in a dusty window seat, gazing out the window covered in centuries of soot and grime, and Severus slowly scoots aside to give him room to join.

“You look a lot better,” John eventually says.

Severus huffs. “I’m fairly certain anything is an improvement over blood pouring out of your neck.”

John rolls his eyes, settling closer to Severus on the bench and fighting back a grin. “Hag,” he chuckles under his breath.

Severus’ chest aches when he whispers back, “Troll.”

And suddenly John’s eyes are wet, and John is leaning forward, grasping both of Severus’ thin hands in his. “Sev,” John says, voice shaking and choked. “Sev, you have no idea – how I missed you. I _missed_ you.”

Severus swallows hard, reaching forward to wipe John’s single tear from his cheek. “I can imagine,” he whispers back.

Because he _can_ imagine, because he will miss John Watson like a missing limb the moment John drinks that potion to return with Sherlock to 2005, and Severus can barely think of how he’ll breathe after he’s gone, how he’ll even take a step, but he has to, because John has come back and given him life, and he has to live . . .

John’s fingers slip through his, entwining their hands between them. “You’ve been avoiding us, these last few days,” he says softly, eyes slightly hurt.

Severus nods, and his fingers shake, because now is the time he has to say it, and he’s suddenly terrified, even though he’s repeated the words in his head hundreds of times over the last few days, and he chokes out, “You need to be with him,” before he loses his nerve and gives in to his fear.

And John’s face pales. “What –”

“You love him,” Severus says softly, and John reaches forward and places one warm hand on Severus’ chest, right over his heart, and the seconds tick by like hours until John finally looks up into his eyes and says, “Yes.”

And as they look at each other, Severus tries not to think about how saying goodbye will feel like reaching into his own soul and ripping it in two – how he’s afraid he will never be able to cast his Patronus again, but John sees it anyways.

“You’re not planning on coming back with us, on drinking the potion,” John says, and it isn’t a question.

Severus swallows hard. “Miss Granger’s recipe is sound – I’ve made a few adjustments. But I . . . you should be with him, you _want_ to be with him, and I –”

“I did all of this so you could be with me too,” John suddenly says, eyes blazing. “I did this so you wouldn’t have to be dead –”

“And I’m no longer dead,” Severus says, chest aching. “But I need to figure out how to live –”

“You can’t live here,” John says back frantically. “Severus, there isn’t any place for you in this time. You’re dead, you can’t be seen – everyone still thinks you’re a villain. This wouldn’t be a life –”

“I need to figure out how to live in this world,” Severus says back, clutching John’s hand. “The Dark Lord is dead, and the war is over, and I’m no longer a teacher, and I need to figure out . . . I can’t just skip ahead – I need to figure out how to live . . . how to live without . . .”

And he can’t bring himself to say, “ _How to live without you,_ ” but John hears it anyways, and his face crumples, and his fingers grip Severus’ thin shirt.

“I’m sorry,” John whispers. “I’m so sorry. I just wanted –”

“I know,” Severus says, leaning forward to rest his forehead against John’s. “John, you saved my life. You came back for me. You don’t have to be sorry –”

“But I want you to be happy. You deserve to be happy. And I –” John looks up, sadness weighing down his eyes, “and I’m happy with him.”

Severus blinks hard, breathing deeply to try and calm his racing heart. “He thinks you’re going to stay with me,” he finally says.

John wipes his forearm hard across his nose. “I know.”

“He’s a remarkable man.”

John’s mouth twists. “I know.”

And John looks so broken, so unbelievably sad, that Severus realizes he would do anything – throw himself in Nagini’s path again, re-take the Dark Mark – if only John’s eyes could be bright again, clear blue.

But John wouldn’t want him to do any of those things, because he saved him, and he’s sitting here, clutching to Severus’s shirt and begging him to be happy, and so Severus says, “Do you really think it means nothing to me to see you be content with him? To know that you’re alive, and that you’ve found him, and that you’re alright?”

John lifts Severus hand to his face, pressing the back of his palm to his cheek. “Sev,” he says quietly. “Sev, I met him the day I watched your memories. I was coming back from Gringotts, putting them away.” John presses his lips to the back of Severus’ hand, closing his eyes before meeting his. “I was going to kill myself when I got back.”

And Severus can’t breathe, feels like he’s falling hundreds and thousands of stories through a thick, black sky, and he finally says, “John, it was all for you.”

And John’s lips tremble, the water in his eyes reflecting the dim light pouring through the dirty window. “I know,” John says. “But I want it to be for you, too.”

And Severus looks down at his hand, entwined with John’s fingers, and sees the black lines of the Mark in contrast to John’s smooth skin, and he responds, “That’s why I need to stay.”

John nods slowly, and they both look at their hands for a long time, breathing in unison. And finally John reaches his hand into his pocket and pulls out a long, thin box.

“I snuck into Hogsmeade the other day when you were asleep,” John says. “I got you something you’ll need.”

And Severus’ fingertips shake as he reaches for the box, something thudding in his veins when he realizes what it is, and John watches him silently as pulls back the dusty lid to reveal a wand – and the wand looks exactly the same as his old one did, gnarled and black, and the sight of it feels like cool water being poured down his throat, soothing an ache.

He picks it up and holds it in his palm, cradling it in his hands. John reaches forward and closes Severus’ fingers around it, holding them there. “It’s as close as I could get to yours,” he says. “It’s got the same core, so I hoped it would work –”

And before John can finish speaking, Severus grips the wand tightly in his hand, and he wordlessly points it towards the center of the room, and breathes fully into his lungs, and he thinks of seeing John Watson standing in the door to the Shrieking Shack, and his black bear bursts effortlessly from the tip of the new wand, galloping through the air until it passes through John’s body and disappears through the windowpane, off into the sky.

And he looks back at John, whose eyes are wide with amazement, and he allows himself to say three words for the first and last time. 

“I love you,” he whispers.

And John gasps, and reaches out to cup Severus’ face in his warm hands, and he looks into his eyes and says, “I’ve always loved you,” before leaning forward and pressing his lips to Severus’ mouth, and Severus closes his eyes and drowns in the feeling of John’s lips against his, of the taste of his skin, and he savors the breath coming out of John’s nose onto his upper lip, and memorizes the texture of John’s skin, the heat of his mouth, the tiniest sip of his wet tongue, and as John lips rest gently against his, not even moving, Severus lets his magic burn in his chest, and spread through his fingertips clutching to John’s skin, and he lets his magic say, “ _I have loved you since I found you on the train tracks, and I know that this kiss is goodbye, and you can go._ ”

And when John finally pulls back, slowly lifting his mouth from Severus’ lips, Severus opens his eyes to stare into deep blue.

“You found me,” John whispers, and Severus leans up to kiss John’s forehead, just under his hair, and says into his warm skin, “You always tell me that I found you, but you’ve found me hundreds and hundreds of times.”

 

\--

 

2000

There was a moment, right after John had Apparated into the hallways of the empty school and drawn his wand, when he thought that maybe he was doing something insane.

He paused, standing there with his wand pointed at the back of the cabbie’s head, and he realized that he barely knew this man at all – this man whom he had chased halfway across London over rooftops, and who had magically cured his limp by leaving his cane back at a restaurant, and who was currently lifting a pill up into the air, opening his mouth.

And John realized that Sherlock Holmes might be a criminal himself – just like everyone said. And he may not even end up sharing the flat with him, and he may not even know him past tomorrow, and Sherlock may be insane. And yet here John was - about to kill someone in the back of the head with a wand in his hand, because Sherlock Holmes was in danger – had run off without the help of the police to catch a madman.

And then John remembered, standing there in the abandoned hallway with his wand arm raised, how the words, “ _Afghanistan or Iraq_ ,” had vibrated in his bones the exact same way as the words, “ _how old are you_ ,” had done years and years ago. How they both prickled under his skin, and settled in his lungs, and made the world look a little less grey – brimming with magic.

And so John aimed his wand, and muttered a spell under his breath, and watched without flinching as a bullet burst silently from the tip of his wand, traveling through walls and windows without so much as a sound, and landing squarely in the back of the cabbie’s head.

And he watched Sherlock Holmes leap back, and frantically look around for who had fired the shot, eyes wide with shock. 

And John whispered, “That one was for you, Sev,” before turning and Apparating away on the spot.

 

\--

 

1998

The potion tastes like chunky sewer water and wet slugs.

Sherlock chokes it down, trying not to hurl it up all over the floor, and he hears John chuckling beside him as he knocks it back easily, without even a flinch, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth when he’s done.

Sherlock’s heart thuds in his chest as he shifts the rucksack on his shoulder. They have three minutes, Severus had told them, before the potion kicks into effect, and they can use the Time Turner, and hopefully end up right back where they started all of this nine days ago – completely good as new.

And Sherlock turns to John and sees every emotion painted across his face, as John looks at Severus, who hasn’t drunk any of the potion, and who’s standing there with nothing but a wand and a fresh set of black robes.

“Sev –” John starts to say, but Severus raises a steady hand. “I’m sure,” he says softly.

And Sherlock knows that he’s sure, because Severus had come to him the night before, once he had finished brewing their potion while John was asleep, and he had stood beside Sherlock staring out one of the windows up at the bright stars, shoulder to shoulder.

And Sherlock was just about to open his mouth to tell Severus he didn’t have to thank him, because he could tell Severus was gathering his words, starting to say something, when Severus had said, “I assume John’s told you everything?”

Sherlock had swallowed back his words and nodded. “He told me you’re staying back here – in this time.”

And Severus had hummed under his breath beside him. “You still don’t quite believe he’s going with you,” he’d said, and Sherlock had squared his shoulders, saying, “It’s best not to theorize before you have all of the facts in place.”

Severus had asked, “When will you have all the facts, then? That he’s going to join you?”

And Sherlock had shivered and responded, “When we’re standing back in our flat. In 2005.”

Severus had hummed. “I’m guessing I don’t need to explain to you why I’m staying?”

“Not at all. I would do the same.”

Severus had cleared his throat, seeming nervous. “If John . . . if he still wants to see me a month after you get back, send me a letter.”

“Won’t you want to see him right away?” Sherlock had asked. “It will have been nearly eight years for you. Don’t you want to see him as soon as you can – once we return?” 

Severus had shrugged, and Sherlock could feel the sadness weighing down his shoulders. “John needs to be sure. After all of this . . . once he’s back home with you . . . if he still wants to see me in a month, send me a letter. And I’ll come meet you.”

Sherlock had frowned. “How in the world will I know where to send you the letter?”

And Severus had smirked. “John tells me you’re the greatest detective who ever lived – surely you can find one wizard who’s supposed to be dead.”

And after Sherlock had laughed, Severus had turned towards him, peering down at Sherlock through a curtain of long, black hair. “Thank you,” Severus had said. He’d held up a hand. “Not for saving me, but for finding him. For letting him find you.”

And Sherlock had looked up at the man who’d haunted his life for the last five years and said, “Thank you for buying him his wand.”

And now, as the seconds tick by, and Sherlock waits to once again travel through time, he reaches out his arm towards Severus Snape and shakes his hand, warm and firm, not needing to say anything at all. And he watches as John takes two steps forward, holding back tears, and as Severus Snape falls into John’s arms, holding him close. He watches him press his pale cheek into John’s hair, and breathe him in, and he watches this man willingly say goodbye to John Watson for the next eight years, just so that he can learn how to live.

And Sherlock watches Severus’ chest shake as he holds John Watson in his arms, and as he closes his eyes, nodding after John whispers something into his ear. And John reaches up and runs his fingers through the long, black hair, pushing it away from Severus’ face, and John holds his cheek for a moment, looking into his eyes, until Severus finally nods again and steps away.

And John walks back towards Sherlock, and reaches out for his hand, and drapes the Time Turner around both of their necks, breathing hard. And Sherlock still can’t be sure, still can’t _know_ , even as he feels the potion start to tingle in his veins, and as John’s fingers reach for the tiny gold dial on the Time Turner hanging between them.

Even as Severus steps forward and says, voice shaking, “John, you troll.”

And even as John laughs, breathless and holding back tears, as he turns towards Severus Snape and says, “You better be safe, you old hag.”

Even as Severus Snape suddenly disappears from view, and the world around them trembles, and the floorboards disappear beneath their feet. As they land in mud and grass, beside a dilapidated pile of old wood, wood and rubbish, and as John takes his arm, and breathes deeply, and Apparates them back to London.

Even as Sherlock feels his feet slam against the familiar carpet over hardwood – he doesn’t let himself believe that this is real.

And not until he opens his eyes, and sees their sitting room with John Watson before him - not until John Watson says, “Thank God,” and reaches for Sherlock’s shoulders, not until John is kissing him, standing in the familiar light of 221B, does Sherlock allow himself to accept that John has chosen to follow him home.

 

\--

 

2000

John looked like a dead man making his way through Regent’s Park.

Severus watched him from the shadows of a nearby tree, feeling suddenly thirteen years old again, skipping his second Charm’s lesson back at Hogwarts, as he watched John make his way numbly through the throngs of people – families out with children eating ice cream, and lovers on dates, and harried businessmen walking while reading the paper at the same time.

And John passed by them all, limping hard on his cane, too thin for his clothes, and Severus knew he’d just come back from Gringott’s bank, slowly making his way home to end it all.

And the thought still punched through Severus’ chest, even knowing it was coming, and ever since John had disappeared from the Shrieking Shack with Sherlock Holmes by his side, through the long, lonely nights, and the hiding around corners, Severus had waited for this day to come, because he had to be _sure_ , had to be absolutely certain, that John Watson would find Sherlock Holmes on this day. 

And so he’d traveled from his small flat in Paris - the place he’d been living near where his mother grew up, and where nobody recognized his face, and where he was simply a lonely expat working in a boring chemistry lab under fluorescent lights - and he’d traveled to London, making sure he was never seen, and he’d done his research, remembered everything Sherlock had told him about this day, so that he could be there to make sure John Watson would be found.

He fiddled with the shirtsleeves cuffed around his wrists – the muggle clothes that still felt unfamiliar even after a year and a half of wearing them instead of robes. And he fought against the urge, with every bone in his body, to burst from his hiding place, and sprint towards John Watson, and hold him in his arms saying, “Don’t end it all. You saved me – I’m alive!” 

And oh, how he wanted to touch him again, just breathe in his skin, hear his voice, hold his tired hand in his, because since the moment John had left him standing alone in the empty Shrieking Shack, sinking to his knees in desperation and sudden fear, Severus had felt John’s loss as if his heart was being torn from his chest, as if the fangs were still sunk deep into his neck. And he had ached for him, every single second of every day, more than he ever had in his entire life. And Severus was now a shell of a man, barely even a wizard, just trying to get by, trying to keep living, and even when John was shot, even when he knew he was dying in an army hospital, Severus had forced himself not to ruin it all by rushing to his side, because John Watson was about to meet Sherlock Holmes on this day, and John Watson thought that Severus was dead.

And even though Severus now regretted, with every bone in his body, his decision to stay behind, his foolish hope to set up his life without depending on John Watson, without ruining John’s life he’d built with Sherlock Holmes while he had been dead, today Severus needed to be sure, so he could keep living, and so John could stay alive. He needed to see it with his own eyes.

So he waited, clenching his fists and gasping for air as he watched John make his way slowly through the park, real in the flesh, staring at the ground, and he witnessed the agonized mourning painted across his pale face – mourning for _him_ \- and he waited for a man named Mike Stamford to call John’s name.

He saw Mike Stamford, starting to make his way down another path, and Severus’ blood turned to ice when he realized Mike Stamford was walking the wrong way, away from John’s path, and Mike Stamford couldn’t possibly ever see John the direction he was heading, and they were going to _miss_ each other, by ten steps, right in the middle of Regent’s Park, and John wouldn’t meet Sherlock Holmes, and he would go home and end it all, and Severus didn’t even understand Time magic enough to know if that wouldn’t make him just disappear on the spot – evaporate into nothing.

So Severus whipped his wand out without even thinking, hidden beneath his coat, and he whispered a spell, something so innocent, to cause a gust of wind to burst on Mike Stamford, who was still walking the wrong direction. And the wind knocked Mike Stamford’s briefcase clear out of his hand, throwing it to the ground behind him and breaking it open. And as Mike Stamford turned to pick it up and gather his things, Severus watched him recognize the back of John Watson, limping away. 

And Severus moaned out loud with relief when he heard Mike call out, “John! John Watson!”

And John Watson turned around to see who it was.

And Severus still watched, and waited, and made sure that John followed him to the bench, and then back to Bart’s, and only when John’s golden hair disappeared from view did Severus force himself to leave, knowing he wouldn’t see John Watson again until the day he got a letter from Sherlock Holmes – if that letter ever even came – saying John still wanted to see him in 2005. 

He took one last look around London, the once familiar streets and comforting voices, and then he made his way back to the dark alley where he’d hidden his Portkey – the one that would take him back to his street in Paris, where he lived alone, and where some nights it got so bad he had to cast his Patronus to lie down beside just so he could sleep.

Because Severus was a fool for ever thinking he could go eight years living a life without John Watson. An utter fool.

And when he landed back in Paris, in the alley by his flat, Severus realized that he wasn’t landing on the hard ground, but on top of a person. And the man beneath him was grunting in pain, thrown to the ground by Severus’ body, and Severus panicked and flung himself off him, back to his feet, looking down helplessly at the man struggling to stand up.

Severus held out a shaking hand, panic still churning in his chest, and he helped the man up, who started to brush the dust from his shirt.

“J’suis désolé,” Severus said breathlessly. “Très désolé --”

But the man looked up at him as he was apologizing, and the words died in Severus’ throat, and both of them gasped.

Because the man was beautiful, hair mussed and cheeks flushed from the fall, and he was looking back at Severus as if he’d just been knocked down by the sun.

And this man didn’t know anything about magic or wizards or wands. He didn’t know that Severus was dead, or that there were Dark Marks, or that Severus had just traveled to London to make sure a man named John Watson met a man named Sherlock Holmes.

He didn’t know any of that, and he still, in the dim light of the alley, looked at Severus like he was the sun brought to earth, and he wasn’t even angry that Severus had just knocked him to the ground, appearing straight out of the sky, and this man smelled like fresh bread and lavender and whisky – like old books not stained by potions, and like the hand-knitted blanket Severus’ mum had always kept on their hand-me-down couch.

And he was _beautiful_ , so Severus took one step closer to his warmth without even realizing it.

And the man cleared his throat, still breathing hard, and lifted out his hand, fingers steady, and simply said, “Je m’appelle Philippe.”

And Severus felt a wild thrumming in his chest – the same one he had felt decades ago coming upon a little boy balancing on the train tracks – as he took the man’s hand and responded, “Severin.”

 

\--

 

2006

This year, on the 6th of January, Sherlock gets out of bed, and he folds shut an envelope addressed to a little flat in Paris that it’s taken him nearly three weeks to track down.

He’d written the letter inside it the same night he and John had come home, just a little over a month ago, after Sherlock had sunk to his knees in their living room, pressing his face to John’s thighs with the rucksack still hanging off his shoulder, and he’d whispered, “I love you. God, I love you,” until John had joined him, kneeling on the worn carpet, and said, “You idiot, I love you too.”

And that night, as John had slept next to him peacefully in their bed – the bed Sherlock had thought would never have two people in it again – he’d picked up his pen, and simply wrote, “ _We are well. He wants to see you,_ ” because he’d finally known it all about John Watson, and he’d finally understood.

And this year, on the 10th of January, Sherlock wakes up to the sound of an owl tapping on their bedroom window, irritated at the presence of the glass. And John rolls over blearily, and rubs the sleep from his eyes, and silently waves his hand to open the window and let the owl in, who lands ungracefully right on John’s crotch and screeches until John unties the letter and sends it away with a treat.

John frowns, opening the letter with clumsy hands in the early morning light.

Sherlock reads over his shoulder. “ _Troll, I’ll be in the old valley today at noon. – Hag._ ”

John gasps and looks up at Sherlock. “You found him? You’ve already contacted him?”

Sherlock smiles, resting his head in one hand. “I wrote the letter a month ago the day we came back – that you’d want to see him. Just took me a few weeks to track him down to know where to send it.”

John flips the envelope over in shaking fingers. “He’s in Paris?”

Sherlock hums. “Been living there in a few flats this whole time. He works for a university now – chemistry research. Made quite a bit of money from what I can tell by his address.”

John swallows hard. “He’s alright?”

“He’s alright.”

And John’s smile lights up the whole room, warming Sherlock’s skin with a golden shiver, and Sherlock thinks, when John leans over to place the letter on the bedside table, that he’s going to leap up, and start getting ready, and make his clothes and tea and toast whiz about the room.

But instead John sets down the letter, and turns around in the bed, and grabs Sherlock’s neck to pull him into a wet kiss, sleepy and slow. 

Sherlock moans against John’s lips, letting John lick into his mouth and whisper his name, puffs of air rolling across his warm tongue. John’s fingertips glide up his bare ribs, shivering the skin, as John moves his kisses to Sherlock’s jaw, licking wet paths down his neck, sucking on his collarbone.

John’s cock is already warm and thick pressed into Sherlock’s thigh, and he grasps at the muscles in John’s back, already hot and coated with sweat, and he whispers, “Shit.”

John hums, trailing his tongue through the hair on Sherlock’s chest until he reaches a nipple, enveloping it between his warm lips until Sherlock is grabbing the back of John’s head, fingers tight in his hair, and pressing his chest up into the heat of John’s mouth, rubbing against his tongue.

“Christ, look at you,” John groans, “What did I do to have you?” He kisses down Sherlock’s trembling stomach, sticking his tongue in his navel, and Sherlock looks down to watch John’s head move down his body, heavy and warm, and he sees his skin glisten in the morning light in all the places where John’s tongue has tasted him, licking across his muscles and sucking where his hip meets his thigh until Sherlock is reaching down to grab John by the arms, pulling him back up to lay his full weight on top of him, crushing Sherlock down into the mattress as Sherlock licks into his mouth, panting against his lips, and he hears himself beg, “Please, please . . .”

“Fuck yes.” John reaches for his wand and whispers warm Latin against Sherlock’s ear, laying across his panting chest, and Sherlock suddenly feels himself grow open and wet, aching to be filled as his cock pulses where it’s pressed against John’s belly, rubbing against the soft skin.

“Please,” Sherlock whispers again, grabbing handfuls of John’s hair, grasping the slick skin over his spine, because he needs to be with John, needs John to take over every inch of his skin, and cover him in magic, and make Sherlock feel like he could raise his finger and cast a Patronus by just the feeling of John’s body in his, filling him whole.

And he needs John to know, deep in his bones, in the fibers of his muscles, that Sherlock would do anything, give his whole self over, travel the world in just his bare feet, just so John could see Severus Snape later that day in a sunny field.

And John Watson’s warm cock is at the entrance of his body, pushing inside, and Sherlock moans, rolling his neck, at the feeling of the hot tip circling his hole, tracing the sensitive skin, and Sherlock is just about to tell John to fucking get on with it when John is pushing inside, with one long, slow moan, and Sherlock is breathing the leftovers of John’s air, tasting his lips.

And he wants to tell John that the feeling of their bodies being joined is more wondrous than all the magic Sherlock’s ever seen combined. How the feeling of John inside him, thick and pulsing, covers his skin in warmth more than any spell John’s ever cast, more than any Latin he could breathe, and the way John’s chest brushes against his as he moves, hips dragging lazily across thighs, makes Sherlock think that this is the only magic in existence, just this skin on skin.

But he doesn’t say any of that, and instead licks the shell of John’s ear and whispers, “Come on, come on,” until John’s fingertips are wound tightly through his curls, and John’s belly is pressing hard against Sherlock’s warm cock as he moves on top of him, thrusting inside to the rhythm of Sherlock’s breathing, panting under his weight, and Sherlock clutches at John’s skin, wanting the entire world to disappear, because John Watson is here, in their bed, and he’s filling Sherlock’s body with himself, and grunting his name, and the feeling of the sweat across John’s back is utterly beautiful, and the pressure of John’s penis inside his body, gliding across his skin, is the only thing that makes sense in the entire universe – the only logical thing.

And John whispers into his ear, breath hot and wet against Sherlock’s curls, and suddenly Sherlock’s hips are rising off the bed, legs totally weightless, and John kneels back on his knees and grabs his hips, looking down with flushed cheeks for Sherlock to say yes.

And Sherlock stares up at him, brushing the curls from his eyes before reaching out to touch the skin of John’s stomach, trailing his fingers through the soft hair surrounding his cock, buried inside him. Holding his thighs.

“God, yes,” Sherlock whispers, and John breathes a sigh of relief before thrusting into him hard, making the bed shake, and Sherlock see stars as the pleasure rolls up his spine, pooling between his thighs, and John’s hands on his hips are the only things that he can feel, the only things tethering him to the earth, to keep him from floating up into the sky, and Sherlock drowns in the wave of release, in the rolling of his muscles, calling John’s name, and he doesn’t even realize that John has come too until John’s body is heavy on top of him, and he is no longer weightless, and the space between their bodies is warm and damp.

John looks up and brushes the curls back from Sherlock’s sweating forehead, kissing his cheek. “I think I’m getting too old to fuck you that hard,” he mumbles into Sherlock’s skin.

Sherlock chuckles, reaching his hands up to cradle the back of John’s neck. “We’re not that old. At least, I’m not.”

John’s foot kicks his shin beneath the sheets, and Sherlock smiles and sighs, feeling John’s heartbeat racing against his, beating along his skin, and he revels in the feeling of John’s soft penis pressed into his thigh, bare and safe and unashamed, and he silently marvels at the fact that after so many years, John can still take his breath away. Can still make him feel like magic is thrumming out of his own fingertips.

And he feels warmth bloom in his chest, vibrating in his core, because the other night John had called out, “ _Sherlock_ ,” instead of “ _episkey_ ,” in his sleep.

And even though Sherlock knows John has thought of Severus Snape every second since they arrived back in their flat, with Hermione Granger’s Time Turner still draped around their necks, John has also looked just as light, just as weightless as he did the moment Severus gasped in a breath on the floor and lived. And John has turned that brightness on Sherlock, every time he says his name, and suddenly the forty-three-year-old Sherlock has been living with has become twenty-two, seemingly overnight, and he looks like a John Watson who never saw Severus Snape cast an Unforgivable Curse, and never watched soldiers die under his hands in the sand, and never needed a cane to walk, or found out his best friend – his first love - died afraid and alone.

He looks like _John_ \- John the wizard, who is Sherlock Holmes’ _one_ , and the truth of it all washes over Sherlock’s body until he feels like the insides of his own arms are clean, and like every 6th of January never even happened, and like if he lifted a long stick of wood in his hand, right here and now, he could cast a Patronus from the tip just by thinking of John Watson’s face.

John shifts his head to Sherlock’s shoulder, still curled up against his body. “Will you come with me today?” he whispers.

Sherlock looks down at the tip of John’s nose, trying to hide his surprise. “Are you sure?”

And John looks up at him, lifting his head from Sherlock’s chest, and Sherlock sucks in a breath at the look in his eyes, at the depth of emotion.

John touches his cheek. “I need you to go with me. I need you by my side.”

And Sherlock looks up at this man, this wizard who he loves more than air, and he whispers, “I’d do anything.”

-

John Apparates them to the field where he taught Severus Snape how to fly.

“Won’t somebody get wind that you’re constantly Apparating with a muggle these days?” Sherlock had asked him when John had said they wouldn’t need a car.

John had shrugged, buttoning up his jacket in the mirror. “I’ve said it before – fuck the Ministry. Except Hermione Granger.”

And Sherlock had chuckled, remembering how he had showed up on Hermione Granger’s doorstep a week after they got back, Time Turner in his hand, and how she had cracked open the door, with baking flour on her nose, and simply asked, “Did it work?” and when Sherlock had nodded she’d said, “Thank goodness. And don’t tell me anything else or I’ll be obligated to turn you in. Merlin knows what trouble I’d already be in at this point.” And she had winked at him and shut the door quietly in his face.

Sherlock doesn’t throw up this time when they Apparate, just stumbles a few times in the grass to get his footing. And he starts to turn to John, to make sure he’s alright, when he sees John’s mouth fall open, and John starts to run, and Sherlock looks in the direction John is running and sees Severus Snape off in the distance, dressed in black trousers and a crisp white shirt, and his long black hair is blowing softly in the wind.

And Severus doesn’t even run, looks like he can’t even move, as John sprints across the grass, looking suddenly like a young kid, and Severus opens his arms as John throws himself against his body, and even from halfway across the field, Sherlock can hear that Severus is crying – breathing hard and whispering John’s name.

And he doesn’t feel sick in the pit of his stomach this time, as he watches John be held tightly in Severus Snape’s arms. He doesn’t burn to look away, or shiver with fear in the back of his neck, and there isn’t any dread, and he feels himself smiling as Severus lifts John briefly off the ground, and John holds Severus’ face in his hands, and Severus leans forward so their foreheads are pressed together, whispering softly, and Sherlock’s mouth nearly hangs open, because he feels like he’s looking at an entirely different man – at two different men – men who know nothing about Dark Marks or wars or death. Men who couldn’t have possibly met in a slum, with bruises on their wrists, and not enough food – who couldn’t possibly have gone to a giant castle school for wizards, or spent more years apart than they have together.

But they are.

John finally turns back to where Sherlock stands waiting in the grass, beckoning him forward, and as Sherlock comes to meet them, Severus puts his arm around John’s shoulders, a perfect replica of the photograph Sherlock had once held in his hands in the middle of the night, back when he knew nothing. 

Sherlock holds back his curls from his eyes in the wind as he approaches, holding out his hand for Severus to take.

“Mr. Holmes,” Severus says, and Sherlock huffs. “Call me Sherlock. And I assume it would be incorrect to call you Mr. Snape these days?”

Severus tilts his head in acknowledgement. “I’m Severin now,” he says. “Severin Prince.”

John looks up at him, still resting comfortably under his arm. “I will never in a million years be able to call you that,” he says, chuckling. Severus shrugs a shoulder, pulling John closer into himself, then leans down to press a quick kiss into his hair, closing his eyes for a moment.

John reaches out his fingers, and Sherlock takes them, eyes roving up and down the new man called Severin Prince.

“You’re Professor Prince now,” Sherlock says. Severus opens his eyes and looks up at him, smirking. “I’d be shocked if you didn’t know that by now,” he says.

Sherlock squeezes John’s fingers before letting go, folding his hands in front of his mouth.

“You’ve taken up cooking in the last few years, taking classes on weekends. You’ve been to Italy on vacation twice, and New York and Japan once – Japan possibly for a conference for your field, but I can’t be sure. You have a small dog, a terrier, which you love but don’t allow on any of your furniture because it’s expensive. You use magic daily around your flat for menial tasks, but today was your first time using magical transportation in a long time.” Sherlock pauses, looks once more at Severus’ face, and gasps. “And you’ve met someone – you have a lover. For a long time, from the looks of it, and she – no, obviously he – is the one who got you into cooking, he’s a chef, and he’s French, a muggle, slightly younger than you, and he only recently found out about your magic, which was shocking, but now that he knows all about your past you’ve renewed your commitment, and it appears from the ring on a chain around your neck you consider yourselves married, so congratulations.”

Sherlock waits for Severus to stare at him open-mouthed, but instead he just throws back his head and laughs, and the sound of Severus Snape laughing is so foreign it makes Sherlock take a step back, caught off guard.

“John’s printed stories about you aren’t exaggerating at all, I see,” Severus says, and John is the one staring at him open-mouthed, fighting a smile.

“Fantastic,” he breathes, before looking up at Severus. “Is all of that true?” he asks breathlessly. “Was he right?”

Severus releases John from under his arm, reaching up to undo the top button of his shirt and pulling out a long chain with a ring hanging from the end. “It’s true,” Severus says. John reaches up quickly to hold the ring in his palm. Suddenly Severus looks nervous, tucking his hair behind his ear looking down at John. “He . . . his name’s Philippe. We met almost six years ago, the same time as you and Sherlock. He’s . . . he loves me,” Severus says softly, looking anxiously down at John, and Sherlock watches as John’s lips shake, and he places the ring back against Severus’ shirt before pressing his cheek against his chest, hugging him close.

And neither of them say anything as Severus wraps his arms back around John’s body, resting his cheek in his hair, but Sherlock feels the combination of their magic starting to thrum in the air, and it bathes across his skin, weaving through his curls, and the grass beneath them tingles, and suddenly a warm pulse of light flickers between John and Severus’ chests, warm and glowing until it nearly eclipses the sun above their heads. Sherlock gasps and shields his eyes. The light burns in the air, humming where John and Severus’ bodies touch, and Sherlock starts to step back to escape the heat when, just as quickly as it began, the light is gone, fading into air, and John is stepping back, reaching out to pull Sherlock close to his side. His skin is cool to the touch, and humming with magic which tingles down Sherlock’s spine. Nobody says anything, and Sherlock holds back one million questions – questions like why, or how, or what that even was.

And Severus looks down at both of them with a slow, calm smile as John wraps his arm firmly around Sherlock’s waist. “Have you taken Philippe flying?” John asks Severus with a grin.

Severus shakes his head. “I figured one step at a time. He’s only just seen Transfiguration. Didn’t want to scare him away,” he chuckles.

And John looks up at Sherlock shooting him a look that takes Sherlock’s breath away, and makes him lean down to kiss John’s soft forehead, open and clear, and John hums at the press of his mouth to his skin, and Sherlock remembers, all at once, the feeling of soaring above the clouds, holding on to John’s back as they kissed the open sky.

He looks back up at Severus. “You should bring him,” he says. “John tells me you’re no longer a complete waste on a broom. The four of us could come here.” He looks down at John, getting his silent ok before saying, “We’d love to meet him. To see you again.”

And Severus looks like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, and the wind ruffles his hair. “I’ll do that,” he says softly. “We would love to do that.”

-

Later, much later, after John and Severus have said their goodbyes, and made plans for when to meet back up to go flying, and after three grown men have mysteriously disappeared from a rural field, and after John has made the tea, John walks up to Sherlock and silently presses a glass vial into his palm, filled with wisps of blue.

“It’s a memory,” John says, “for the 2nd of May.”

And so, later that year, on the morning of the 2nd of May, Sherlock wakes next to John Watson, who had a full night’s sleep without any tears, and he pours the crystal memory into John’s pensieve, and takes a deep breath before pressing his face into the swirling, cool smoke.

And he sees himself, trapped against a tree, with a giant black ghost howling into his face, feeding off his soul, and he watches John struggle to his knees, covered in blood, and raise his wand, and with a giant scream produce the glowing bear from the tip of his wand to save him.

And when Sherlock surfaces, and looks across the stone basin into John’s eyes, John reaches out to hold his hand, fingertips full of magic, and he says, “I was thinking about ‘Afghanistan or Iraq’.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew - what set out to be a little 10k Potterlock experiment has resulted in this, and I couldn't be more grateful for all of the kind words and encouragement I've received along the way. I've wanted to write Severus Snape for a long, long time, and the chance to share his story with all of you has been truly special :)
> 
> I feel truly humbled for all of the kind comments I've received! I promise I'll get to them all eventually in terms of a response.
> 
> For those of you waiting on more Priest!lock with Gallant Darling, have hope! This break has given me the much needed boost I need to start tackling that fic again, so expect an update relatively soon.
> 
> Y'all are the coolest.


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